The financial health and morale of Quebecers are in better shape than those of other Canadians, according to an opinion survey.
Despite the slowdown in inflation and the start of falling interest rates, Canadians are increasingly worried about their financial situation, the National Payroll Institute (NPI) reported Thursday. The proportion of them who say they belong to the group of financially stressed people has increased, in one year, from 37% to 41%.
But Quebecers, for their part, seem to be following an opposite trajectory: the proportion of them saying they are financially stressed has decreased from 37% to 28%.
The difference between Quebecers and other Canadians is observed through other indicators from the survey carried out online at the beginning of July among 1,500 Canadian workers, which would give it a margin of error of plus or minus 2, 5%, 19 times out of 20, if he had used a probabilistic method.
For example, a quarter of all respondents admitted to living paycheck to paycheck and that they would have difficulty meeting their financial obligations if their pay was delayed by just one week. In Quebec, this proportion fell this year from 25% to 19%.
The main concerns seem to come from household debt and the cost of housing. Nearly half of all Canadians say they are overwhelmed by their debts, compared to only 30% of all Quebecers. The rising cost of housing concerns 72% of all Canadians, compared to 62% of Quebecers.
A perception anchored in reality
The good news in these data on the financial health of Quebecers is that they go beyond perceptions, rejoices Pierre Fortin, president of Jean Fortin & Associés and spokesperson for the INP. “After all, they could wear rose-colored glasses. »
The insolvency trustee sees this as a reflection of three important factors where Quebec has been doing better than the rest of Canada in recent years. The first — and most important — is house prices, which were lower and increased less than in Ontario or British Columbia, reducing the effect of the sharp rise in interest rates in from 2022. The second is the state of the labor market, where Quebec continues to do better than elsewhere, with an unemployment rate of 5.7% last month, compared to 6.6% in Canada. The third is the consumer debt rate, which is also one of the lowest in Canada.
All these factors explain how Quebec households were able to post, last quarter, a savings rate of almost 13% after tax, compared to an average of 7.2% in Canada and around 5% usually, says Pierre Fortin. “This is exceptional and very important because the savings rate is the most beautiful indicator there is. There is no better way to protect yourself against possible financial blows in the future. »
A human and economic cost
The increase in financial stress among Canadians is bound to have consequences on their quality of life and on the entire economy, observes the INP. Two-thirds of people who say they are financially stressed report that it harms their relationships with others to the point of having led 16% to lose their temper against those around them. More than a third (36%) report having seen their social ties deteriorate, and almost a quarter (23%) have lost sleep.
Workers are not the only ones bearing this burden. More than 37% of Canadians and 33% of Quebecers believe that financial stress harms their performance at work, particularly because almost half (45%) of the former and almost a third of the latter (32%) spend at least 15 minutes at work every day thinking about their financial situation. This would have cost the economy almost 54 billion this year in lost productivity, compared to 46 billion last year, 40 billion in 2022 and 27 billion in 2021.