Results from the Business Outlook Survey and the Business Leaders’ Pulse show that softer demand and renewed competitive pressures are slowly pushing down growth in output prices. Concerns about labour shortages are receding; even so, wage growth is expected to ease only gradually. Partly because of this slow easing, firms expect inflation to remain above the Bank of Canada’s 2% target for some time. • Firms’ pricing behaviour is slowly returning to normal; however, some businesses continue to make larger and more frequent price increases than they did before the COVID‑19 pandemic. Firms increasingly see demand and ... (full story)

This survey took place between November 1 and 17, 2023. Follow-up interviews took place from December 1 to 8, 2023. • Consumers perceive inflation to have decreased, and their expectations for price growth for some key goods such as food and gas have moderated. But near-term inflation expectations have barely changed. Persistently high expectations for inflation for services such as rent may be slowing progress in returning overall inflation expectations to where they were before the COVID?19 pandemic. Expectations for inflation in the long term have fallen further below the historical average and continue to be more ... (full story)