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Economic News

Quebec: GDP Dropped Significantly for the First Time in November

February 25, 2025
Sonny Scarfone
Principal Economist

Highlights

  • After several months of appreciable growth, Quebec saw its real GDP decline by 0.5% in November. This is the largest monthly decline since the public sector strikes in late 2023.
  • Numbers were down across the board. All goods-producing sectors were in negative territory, and on the services side, only education posted significant growth—the other sectors either pulled back or showed minimal gains.

Comments

November’s results are below expectations, especially since the job creation numbers in the Labour Force Survey, available to January, suggested that the economy had continued to do well up until then, at the very least.

Several of the industries External link. identified as more vulnerable to tariffs slid considerably, including manufacturing, wholesale trade, and transportation and warehousing. This is unfortunate, as tariffs are set to take effect on March 4. We would have preferred stronger growth as we enter this period of heightened volatility.

All the same, these results should be taken with a grain of salt: Quebec’s economy grew at a solid pace throughout 2024. Even if real GDP stagnated in December, it would still have increased by 1.3% over the year, more than double the gains we saw in 2023.

Implications

While November’s performance was disappointing, 2024 as a whole was a period of recovery from an underwhelming 2023 and will have laid the groundwork for an economy that’s nearing full employment.

The United States has said that it is moving forward with its planned tariffs next Tuesday. Because of its industrial structure, Quebec will be hit harder by these protectionist measures than most of the other provinces. As a result, the provincial forecasts we’ve released External link. today call for overall growth of 1.2% in 2025 and 2026, which is slightly below the national average.

 

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