Canadian Survey of Consumer Expectations—Second Quarter of 2025

Box 1: Introducing the CSCE indicator

The Canadian Survey of Consumer Expectations (CSCE) indicator was developed to summarize the opinions of Canadian consumers about their spending plans, the labour market and their personal finances and to track how consumers’ opinions change over time.

The indicator combines the results from 11 questions in the CSCE. These questions were selected because of their relevance to consumers’ everyday lives, their ability to capture consumers’ feelings about the economy, and the availability of a long time series.

The responses to these questions are aggregated into three indexes:

  • The labour market index measures how consumers perceive their own future job security and their potential labour market prospects.
  • The financial health index measures how consumers perceive their current financial situation and how they expect it to evolve in the future.
  • The consumer spending index measures consumers’ spending intentions.

Within each index, the components that make up the index are standardized and equally weighted (Table 1-A). Then the three indexes are averaged to produce the CSCE indicator. A positive value suggests consumers’ opinions are positive compared with the survey average, while a negative value indicates their opinions are negative compared with the survey average.

Table 1-A: Components of the CSCE indicator by its indexes
IndexComponents
Labour market
  • Probability of losing a job, next 12 months
  • Probability of finding a job, next 3 months
  • Probability of voluntarily leaving a job, next 12 months
Financial health
  • Change in financial position, past 12 months
  • Expected change in financial position, next 12 months
  • Perceived access to credit, past 12 months
  • Expected access to credit, next 12 months
  • Probability of missing a debt payment, next 3 months
Consumer spending
  • Cutting spending due to inflation expectations
  • Cutting spending due to interest rate expectations
  • Expectations for real spending growth, next 12 months

The CSCE indicator and its indexes can be a useful tool for policy-makers and forecasters because they not only provide a summary measure of consumer opinions but also explain the reasons for variation in consumer opinions, including across different demographic groups.

The Post Was Originally Found On The Bank Of Canada Website