Canada's population continues its strong growth despite signs of slowdown

financialpost.com:

The population growth rate continues to grow at a decent pace despite showing signs of a slowdown in the latest quarter, according to Statistics Canada data released Wednesday.

Canada is estimated to have added 250,229 people between April and July this year, which represents a quarterly growth rate of 0.6 per cent, the agency said. This is slower than the growth rate during the same quarters in 2023 and 2022, when the population grew by 334,606 and 253,510 people, respectively.

“This marked the first time since 2020 that quarterly growth has been slower than in the same quarter a year earlier,” Statistics Canada said on Wednesday. “In 2020, population growth was almost halted following border restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

But the 0.6 per cent growth rate in the second quarter is still higher than any other second quarter before 2022, the agency said.

As of July 1, 2024, the country’s population is estimated to have been 41.2 million. It increased by about 1.2 million and grew at a rate of around three per cent between July 1, 2023, and July 1, 2024.

Canada’s population growth relies on immigration, which also plays a key role in the country’s economic growth. But Ottawa plateaued its permanent residency targets and announced cuts to stem the rise of temporary residents in the past year as unemployment rates rose, especially among newcomers and the youth, and job vacancies declined.

In the latest quarter, there was a net increase of 117,836 temporary residents, which includes students, temporary foreign workers and asylum claimants, taking the total number of temporary residents past the three million mark as of July 2024.

“The rate (of growth of temporary residents) has been slowing since October 2023,”