Paul Martin's Business Update - December 24th

Paul Martin's Business Update - December 24th

The big headline does not always tell the story.

In the news business, anything sensational generally gravitates to the top and can color perceptions so we don’t always get a true picture of what’s going on around us. A good case in point is the state of the larger economy in this province.

When Potash Corp announced layoffs at its Lanigan mine a couple weeks back, the immediate reaction was palpable. Is this a signal that the Saskatchewan economic success story had hit the wall …was the most common question that followed.

But last week we got some other news that wasn’t quite as sensational and didn’t land with quite as much impact.

First were wholesale revenue figures for the province. Second was numbers from the manufacturing sector. Both are important indicators of what’s going on economically and they were a stark contrast to the lay-off announcement. Revenues in the wholesale sector grew by 4.5 per cent in a month and were spread across the entire market segment. Manufacturing sales, meanwhile, rose 12 per cent for the year. Good news without the big headline.