Summer air travel, job layoff trends and Ottawa Senators sale: Business and investing news for May 14

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Getting caught up on a week that got away? Here’s your weekly digest of the Globe’s most essential business and investing stories, with insights and analysis from the pros, stock tips, portfolio strategies and more.

Canadian air travel preps for a busy summer

Will air travel this summer mimic the chaos of cancelled flights, long airport lines and lost luggage of last summer and Christmas? According to Eric Atkins, Canada’s air carriers and airports say this time is different, but industry experts and union officials are less confident. They say labour shortages, strong demand, airfare inflation and ambitious schedules are a recipe for more chaos. Meanwhile, all of Canada’s major airlines have plans to boost business this summer. Air Canada, which posted its second consecutive profitable quarter in a row this week, plans a 7-per-cent rise in July flights over the same month last year. WestJet has scheduled a 4-per-cent increase in flights with 9-per-cent more seats. Porter is offering 14-per-cent more flights. And Flair’s schedule shows a 30-per-cent increase in flights and available seats, according to Cirium, an aviation data company.

Who wants to buy the Ottawa Senators?

The Ottawa Senators are up for sale after the death of owner Eugene Melnyk last year, and interested buyers include a handful of celebrities. Abigale Subdhan takes a look at the growing list of contenders who’ve entered the fray ahead of the May 15 deadline for final bids. They include actor Ryan Reynolds, musicians Snoop Dogg and The Weeknd, as well as billionaires Michael Andlauer and Steve Apostolopoulos, to name a few. A recent valuation by Forbes listed the NHL team at US$800-million, although some experts are saying the sale could fetch more than US$900-million.

Job layoffs are coming

For the past two years, Canadian companies have bemoaned the lack of available workers. But now the issue increasingly on the minds of corporate managers is too many workers. Talk about worker shortages during earnings calls dropped sharply in the first quarter of the year, and has continued to fall in the months since. That pattern roughly matches job vacancies in Canada, which peaked in the middle of last year and are now falling, thanks in part to rapid population growth. Jason Kirby takes a closer look in this week’s Decoder.

Remote work isn’t becoming the norm

Not long after pandemic lockdowns forced major companies to adapt to working from home, the death of the office seemed near. And yet, a growing body of data suggests a sharp decline in the proportion of workers across North America who work remotely 100 per cent of the time, and a corresponding surge in the number of people who do hybrid work, meaning they split their time between home and office. As Vanmala Subramaniam reports, roughly 24 per cent of workers did their jobs exclusively from home in January 2022, according to Statistics Canada data, but by December, 2022, that proportion had declined to 16 per cent. In that period, the proportion of workers with hybrid arrangements rose from 3.6 per cent to 9.6 per cent. This trend is expected to continue, with fully remote work decreasing to just 10 per cent of jobs and roughly 30 to 40 per cent of workers – mostly managers and professionals – adopting hybrid work.

The housing bubble is ready for a comeback

The Canadian housing bubble may have popped last year, but on Monday – when the Canadian Real Estate Association releases its April resale data – we could see its comeback accelerate. According to Robert McLister, April national home sales and prices could shift into high gear, and if that happens, sweat beads might form on those home shoppers feeling urgency. National average home values had never had a 25-per-cent correction – until this year. If you blinked, you probably missed it. So what should you do if you’re one of the countless Canadians planning to buy? McLister outlines a few scenarios.

Don’t expect to get the maximum monthly CPP benefit

There’s a $495.36 gap between the maximum monthly Canada Pension Plan retirement benefit in 2023 and the average amount people actually receive. On the Government of Canada website, you’ll find that the maximum monthly retirement benefit in 2023 is $1,306.57 per month and the average is $811.21. Why is the average amount just 62 per cent of the maximum? Not getting the maximum CPP payout in retirement is common, Rob Carrick writes. So when planning for retirement, the amount you’ve saved is just one aspect. Another is the income you can expect, and essential to the income calculation is the amount of CPP you can expect.

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Now that you’re all caught up, prepare for the week ahead with the Globe’s investing calendar.