Economic group says Saskatoon’s economy is nearly halfway back to normal

There’s now a scoreboard keeping track of Saskatoon’s progress in recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Saskatoon Regional Economic Development Authority (SREDA) launched an economic recovery tracker. It’s based on a comparison of 10 key economic indicators prior to the pandemic and what they are today.

“The tracker provides a good gauge of the health of the overall economy, and provides insight into the areas we need to support in order to get back to pre-COVID-19 levels,” SREDA president and CEO Alex Fallon said in a news release.

“Currently we are less than halfway recovered to pre-COVID-19 levels at 48.2 per cent, showing some progress on our way to recovery.”

Airport passenger travel has the lowest recovery rate on the tracker at 18.7 per cent, while retail sales and manufacturing shipments had fully recovered.

“We don’t know how long it is going to take, but we do know, at some point, the regional economy will recover to pre-COVID-19 levels,” Fallon said. “The tracker will help us monitor the progress and provide understanding of the different areas of the economy that contribute to the recovery.”

The data used in the SREDA tracker is from Statistics Canada, the Conference Board of Canada, the International Monetary Fund and industry association.

The tracker will be continuously be updated and can be accessed on the SREDA website.