Canadians cutting back on holiday gifts, travel amid inflation concerns: poll

globalnews.ca:

The high cost of living is dampening the holiday joy for many Canadians as they plan to cut spending on gifts and travel over the winter break, polling shows.

Nearly 80 per cent of Canadians said in an Ipsos poll conducted exclusively for Global News that inflation and rising interest rates have had a “significant” impact on their holiday budgets.

A similar majority (77 per cent) also said they don’t plan on travelling over the holiday period, with more than half of the respondents saying this was because of inflation, according to the Ipsos poll published Wednesday.

The survey comes amid growing concerns about the impacts of interest rate hikes this year as well as a “softening” labour market in Canada as shown in the country’s latest job report released last week.

Canada’s overall inflation rate dipped to 3.8 per cent nationally in September, according to Statistics Canada, offering some relief for consumers.

While prices at the grocery stores cooled from the 6.9 per cent rise in August, they still rose at a rate of 5.8 per cent in September.

So Canadians are still feeling the “affordability crunch” and that is affecting how they plan to spend the holidays with their loved ones this year, said Sean Simpson, senior vice president with Ipsos Public Affairs, in an interview with Global News.

“Housing prices are higher, food prices are higher, all outpacing inflation and so there’s just less money left over at the end of the year to give gifts because people have been able to save less and they’re spending more on the things that they need and less on the things they want,” he said.

While three in 10 Canadians (29 per cent) said they intend to spend less on gifts this coming holiday season than they did last year, roughly