THUNDER BAY – Together, Thunder Bay Ventures and the Faculty of Business Administration at Lakehead University produced the 2024 Thunder Bay Economic Activity Index Report, which is produced every two years.
“What surprised us is, usually Thunder Bay lags behind the province in economic activity. But Thunder Bay exceeded the province in many of our measures," said Dr. Camillo Lento, professor at Lakehead University.
“In terms of resale home prices, in terms of unemployment rate, total employment growth and even housing affordability, even though our housing is less affordable than it was. That rate of change is not as bad as the province as a whole,” he said.
Lento said the data shows that the Thunder Bay economy has not only recouped from the pandemic lows but exceeds pre-pandemic highs.
“That's a big plus for our economy and important for us to understand that we have recovered. Now we just keep moving forward,” he said.
Dr. Braham Dadgostar, past dean of Faculty of Business, said through the data, they figured out the nature of the Thunder Bay economy has changed compared to several years ago.
“I think that population of Thunder Bay actually increased, and there are lots of projects going on. They give a hope that this momentum is going to continue in the future and the economy will move from the last decade to a new era that sees a little bit more of prosperity and economic activity in the area.”
Dadgostar said the information can be used differently in different sectors.
“For example, education – how the structure of the program should be changed to attract more students.
“We look at those that are in production of houses, building and say, ‘now the jail is over, we can actually reinvest and have people available to build the houses.’”
Maria Vidotto, general manager of Thunder Bay Ventures, said the report measures the health of our local economy.
“This helps guide decision making for businesses, policy makers and also community members,” she said.
Vidotto said lots of community partners and leaders were in attendance of the presentation, adding that “It’s great to have our community partners and leaders engaged.”
The results were presented to community partners and leaders on Friday morning.
Lento said the project is a part of an ongoing series of economic insights that are prepared for Thunder Bay Ventures.
“Every two years we run a project that captures secondary data, which is this one.
“Offsetting every two years we capture data primary which is a business consulting index. We do this every couple of years to provide insights into the economy for community leaders,” he said.
The data is collected from various sources publicly available such as the conference board of Canada, CMHC and Stats Canada, Lento added.
All this information will be utilized it in a way that businesses can improve their activities and increase their profitability, Dadgostar said.
