As the price of oil remains below $60 USD per barrel, Calgary continues to feel the pain. Alberta’s biggest city has seen 11,500 jobs vanish since 2014, as its unemployment rate has edged up 10.1 per cent, as of December 2016. In 2016, the office vacancy rate hit a new cyclical high of 23.8 per cent, as the market had a net negative absorption of four million square feet of office space, according to Colliers. Moreover, with 2.6 million square feet of new office space expected to come online in 2017, downward pressure on rents will likely continue. On the industrial side, Calgary benefits as a key hub in Western Canada's distribution network. The industrial vacancy rate is projected to fall from the current 7 per cent to 6.1 per cent by 2018. On the residential side, the total number of housing starts dropped 40 per cent from 2015, to 9,245 units in 2016. The rental vacancy rate has spiked to the 7 per cent range, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., and may even be higher.
