Four Barrick Gold employees detained in Mali
Employees of the Loulo-Gounkoto mine were detained amid the government's push for higher mining taxes.
Despite global economic uncertainty, senior managers remain positive and expect sales growth to increase over the next 12 months.
The Bank of Canada released its Business Outlook Survey today, summarizing interviews with senior managers at about 100 firms roughly making up Canada’s gross domestic product.
The outlook is tempered compared to the same survey run in the spring.
“However, the balance of opinion declined from its level in the spring survey, as the view that sales growth will increase became less widespread,” writes the authors.
“This partly reflects the fact that some firms do not expect sales growth to exceed the strong rate experienced over the past 12 months, as well as some tempering effects from renewed uncertainty regarding the global economic outlook.”
There was a slight uptick in the number of respodents who said they plan to do more hiring.
Firms in the West or working in the resource sector said that attracting suitable labour was a challenge, and the lack of sufficiently skilled workers was crimping output.
Firms believe prices of inputs will stay stable, rising about the same they had over the past 12 months.
