After increasing slightly in April, seasonally adjusted retail sales in Alberta contracted by 1.6% ($114.9 million) in May.

Because seasonally adjusted retail data are not available by sub-sector at the provincial level and because year-over-year sales are skewed by the pandemic, it is difficult to pinpoint what was hampering sales in May.

If, however, we use 2019 as our baseline, we find that sales were down for both new and used auto dealers; housewares stores; gas stations; clothing, shoe and jewellery stores; sporting goods, hobby, book and music stores; health and personal care stores; and convenience stores.

Nationally, seasonally adjusted retail sales pulled back by 2.1% ($1.2 billion) in May.

Answer to the previous trivia question: According to Kaneda and Haub, about 117 billion members of our species have been born on Earth since 190,000 BCE.

Today’s trivia question: Which Alberta community is home to the world’s largest badminton racket?