After riding out the national economy’s recent downturn better than most, the Conference Board of Canada predicts the Windsor area will “bounce back strongly” in 2025.
The independent research organization forecasts next year’s growth of the Windsor area’s gross domestic product will be the second-highest in Canada and more than double its 2024 rate of 1.1 per cent.
Windsor will average annual GDP growth of 2.8 per cent through 2028, says the board, which provides data and analysis on economic trends.
“That’s quite robust,” Windsor-based Conference Board of Canada economist David Ristovski told the Star.
“The Windsor economy started to slow in the second half of 2023 and it carried over into this year. We expect Windsor to bounce back strongly in 2025.”
Ristovski said persistently higher interest rates, inflation and the overall cost of living took a bite out of the conference board’s original forecast of 1.4 per cent growth in 2024, which was revised downward earlier this year.
Despite slower growth, Ristovski said the Windsor area rode out the national economic downturn better than most.
Windsor ranked sixth out of the 24 census metropolitan areas tracked across Canada for GDP growth in 2024.
“Windsor’s economy was actually quite resilient,” Ristovski said. “The area avoided an outright recession.”
Ritvoski said the key drivers of a bright 2025 forecast are the NextStar Energy battery plant and its suppliers creating thousands of new jobs; several large construction projects continuing; a new hospital on the horizon; robust population growth; and expected increases in home construction.
“There’s a lot of positive news coming out of Windsor’s economy,” said Ritvoski, who expects the unemployment rate to drift down to around eight per cent from the current 8.8 in 2025.
“What we expect to see is a steady increase in economic activity throughout 2025.
“The opening of the battery plant, NextStar suppliers like Bobaek (America) adding a second plant in 2025, and CPK Interiors opening a plant to service Stellantis, are going to create a ripple effect of direct and indirect jobs that will touch a lot of sectors.”
Ristovski also sees the area’s population surge continuing and predicts housing starts will rebound in 2025 with interest rates continuing to decline.
After Windsor and Essex County added nearly as many people in 2023 as it had in the previous two decades combined, the historic pace has continued in 2024.
Statistics Canada reports the region welcomed 31,958 people in 2023, to swell the Windsor-Essex population to 468,019.
That surge in population has led to increased interest from retailers from outside the region.
Retail vacancies for spaces of 10,000 square feet or more have dropped from over 10 per cent to 4.3 per cent in the past 18 months.
“We’re expecting retail sales to increase by 4.3 per cent in 2025 compared to 1.7 per cent this year,” Ristovski said. “That’s a reflection of consumer confidence in the local economy.”
While Windsor’s economy slowed this year, StatsCan’s Labour Force Survey shows it still added 9,300 jobs from January through October.
Ristovski said construction, transportation and warehousing have had a good year and he expects more solid growth moving forward with the opening of the Gordie Howe International Bridge next fall.
“The construction industry still has another year of work on the battery plant and bridge, but there are enough new projects in the pipeline, like the mega-hospital, to keep the industry busy,” Ristovski said.
He also expects manufacturing to generate more activity in 2025, with the battery plant operational and Stellantis’s Windsor Assembly Plant and its suppliers pushing out new products.
Production of the new Windsor-built electric Dodge Charger is ramping up this fall. Stellantis is also expected to move up the production launch of its gas-powered Charger models by five months to the first half of 2025.
“We expect manufacturing to perform well next year and for many years beyond,” Ristovski said. “The only bit of uncertainty there might be is how quickly the EV battery market develops.”