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RBC Is First Bank to Predict Canada Headed For Recession in 2023

  • Economy to contract by annualized 0.5% pace in middle of year
  • ‘Inflation has been too strong for too long’: economists
A Royal Bank of Canada  branch in Montreal.

A Royal Bank of Canada  branch in Montreal.

Photographer: Christinne Muschi/Bloomberg
Updated on

Royal Bank of Canada became the first of the country’s major banks to predict the nation’s economy will fall into a recession next year amid four-decade high inflation, historic labor shortages and aggressive interest-rate hikes.

In a new set of projections released on Thursday, Canada’s largest bank said it expects back-to-back quarters of negative growth in 2023, a situation economists refer to as a technical recession.