Economic future looking good: survey

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This article was published 15/10/2019 (2327 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A new survey asking Winnipeggers about their own and the city’s financial and economic well-being indicates people are feeling pretty darn good about things.

About 70 per cent of the 600 participants in the inaugural Winnipeg Economic Perspectives survey said they are optimistic about the economic future of the city.

 

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The survey was commissioned by Economic Development Winnipeg (EDW) and conducted by Probe Research.

Dayna Spiring, CEO of EDW, said that general level of optimism is an encouraging place to begin the process of benchmarking these sentiments. They will now be tracked by semi-annual surveys by Probe, who will ask participants the same questions.

“I love the fact that seven out of 10 Winnipeg adults are optimistic about the future,” Spiring said. “Those are good numbers. I would be happier if it was nine out of 10, but I will take seven out of 10, and we will build off that.”

Survey participants were asked whether they are currently better or worse off financially than a year ago and also what their expectations are for a year from now.

About 50 per cent feel their financial situation is the same now as it was a year ago and will be the same in a year from now. Fewer are worried about their future financial state (22 per cent) than those who said they are worse off now than they were a year ago (27 per cent).

“Fewer believe they will be worse off, but it’s still not a great number,” Spiring said. “But 27 per cent believe they will be better off. That is encouraging for me. We want to see where that number gets to.”

“I love the fact that seven out of 10 Winnipeg adults are optimistic about the future. Those are good numbers. I would be happier if it was nine out of 10, but I will take seven out of 10, and we will build off that.” – Dayna Spiring

Spiring said it’s important for EDW to have good market intelligence and to be able to compare the city against other places and get an historic perspective.

“We are constantly benchmarking ourselves against all the other major cities in Canada,” she said. “We know we compete against them every day for business and investment and, increasingly, talent. This is step one for us to start to understanding how everyone is feeling and what the state of the union is.”

She said that had been lacking. “Working with Probe, we felt this was a great opportunity to take the reins and make sure Winnipeggers had this information available.”

Scott MacKay, president of Probe Research Inc., said these types of questions have been used by pollsters to gauge public sentiment “probably since the days of George Gallup.”

“This is a very good solid sample size and the power of this program is that over time you will get a sense of which direction things are going and how we are reacting to things,” MacKay said.

With 600 participants, it can be said with 95 per cent certainty that the results are within 4.0 percentage points plus or minus what they would have been if the entire adult population of Winnipeg had been surveyed.

Asked about their relative job satisfaction, a whopping 81 per cent of Winnipeggers said they were very satisfied or somewhat satisfied with their jobs, taking in all aspects of their employment situation, including pay, benefits and the personal satisfaction they gain from their work.

 

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Such a result bolsters the reputation the city has long held that there’s a great work ethic here with a reliable workforce that experiences less churn than many other markets.

“That is one of the metrics that really stood out for me,” Spiring said. “It speaks to the diversity of our economy as well, that people are finding roles in this city that they are comfortable with, that they are happy with, that they are satisfied with. Those are all good things.”

The survey found that the younger cohort were among the most optimistic about expectations of future financial gains.

“That is great to see,” Spiring said. “The way young people are finding new careers in technology, for instance, and new opportunities for people to really specialize in areas that interest them.”

For instance, with the French video gaming company Ubisoft establishing a growing development lab in Winnipeg, it opens a whole new career path in a sector that did not have much of a presence prior to their arrival.

“If the young people are optimistic about where Winnipeg is headed into the future then that is a fantastic thing,” she said. “We want to see more of that.”

The thinking is that the survey could provide signals to EDW about issues that may arise that require the city to react. The results are not all rosy — 24 per cent of respondents are concerned about the status of their employment in the next year and 22 per cent fear their economic situation will worsen in the next year.”

“We are going to build on this,” Spiring said. “We are very committed to make sure we continually move forward economically. We know when we sell Winnipeg to a tourism audience, those are the exact same things that talent is looking at when they are deciding whether to move and have a career in Winnipeg.

“We need sports teams. We need great restaurants. We need great festivals,” she said. “All those things go into the same bucket. It’s the same for both audiences.”

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca