Highlights from “Building Construction Price Index, Q1 2022”

The following statistics were released via Nova Scotia Department of Economics and Statistics on Monday, July 11, 2022. See full details from this release here. 

  • Overall non-residential building costs were up 11.4% in Nova Scotia from Q1 2021 to Q1 2022. 
    • The pace of building cost inflation was slower for office buildings (+9.8%), shopping centres (+9.5%) and schools (+9.0%).  There was faster growth for warehouses (+13.2%), factories (+13.3%) and bus depots with repair/maintenance facilities (+20.1%).
  • Across the 11 major Census Metropolitan Areas, non-residential building construction costs generally grew at a faster pace than in Nova Scotia. The exception is for bus depot/repair facilities for which Halifax had the fastest increase in building costs.

BACKGROUND: Statistics Canada publishes a ‘building construction price index’ each quarter for 11 Census Metropolitan Areas.  This includes growth in contractors’ prices for different types of building construction, including materials, labour, equipment, overhead and profit for the construction of new buildings.