As we head into another holiday season, it’s easy to ignore a budget given the long list of items topping Christmas lists, but a new report may give residents of Alberta something to think about.
On Tuesday, Equifax Canada released its latest National Consumer Credit Trends report, and it doesn’t have any good news about our province.
According to the report, the average Albertan is more than $27,000 in debt, excluding mortgage debt, which comes out to more than $6,000 above the national average.
The report also says that the rate at which consumers are paying back that debt is slowing, with delinquency rates up over 13.4 percent.
The figures are even bleaker when you look at average debt levels by city. In Calgary, the average debt is the highest in the country, at $28,355. The city’s delinquency rate is also up by about 8.5 percent.
Edmonton’s average debt load is just under that, at $26,420.
Historically, residents in Western Canada have carried higher debt loads and that’s no different this year, but now it’s apparent that people are having a much harder time to pay it off.
Experts say the figures are no surprise because of the rising unemployment levels.
“I wouldn't call this a crisis situation at this point, but if this trend carries on through 2016; by the middle of next year, we'll be at or above the national average in terms of delinquencies and that would be a disturbing development indeed,” says John Rose, Edmonton’s chief economist.
Calgary, meanwhile, is also leading the way in the terms of average household income, which is about $5,000 higher than the national average.
In another report, released on Thursday from the Conference Board of Canada, there is a bit of positive news for Alberta.
For the first time in six months, the consumer confidence level rose in the province, indicating that consumers have a good outlook on their finances and whether or not they should consider big purchases in the near future.
Conference board senior economist Julie Ades noted there can be some volatility from month to month, but since the end of 2013 the index has not shown much improvement.
"A lot of the recent weakness in consumer confidence is attributed to people's perception of future job prospects in their community," Ades said.
"Although our responses to this question are still relatively negative, there has been some improvements in October and November, particularly in Atlantic Canada, Ontario and Quebec."
Alberta, which has been hit hard by the downturn in the price of oil, saw a five point increase to 50.5, however the index was still nearly 50 points below its average for 2014.
Overall, those questioned were more positive about their financial situation as 16.9 per cent said they were better off now than six months ago rose, compared with 16.5 per cent who responded that way in October.
The share who said they were worse off dropped to 24.3 per cent from 27.1 per cent.
Meanwhile, the balance of opinion on future finances also improved.
On Friday, Statistics Canada will be releasing updated job numbers and it’s widely expected that those figures will be down too.
To review the Equifax report, click here.
(With files from CTVNews.ca)
