— like computer chips — has spread to a wide range of goods. the invasion of ukraine intensified supply chain problems and pushed up commodity prices and inflation worldwide. and large parts of china are now under a renewed lockdown, causing further supply issues, transportation backlogs and uncertainty. 5 / 7 bis central bankers'speeches these are things we didn ’ t foresee. we know we have a ways to go before canadians can fully judge the success of our actions. there is still work to do. the job is not complete. we will continue to focus on building and maintaining the trust of canadians, and we know canadians will continue to hold us to account. trust in times ahead now, i ’ d like to wrap up by saying a few words about where we are today and what canadians can expect from us going forward. the good news is the economy has recovered remarkably fast. as public health measures ease, canadians are spending more. business investment and exports are both picking up, and higher prices for the commodities we export means more revenue coming into canada. job growth is strong, wage growth has returned to pre - pandemic levels and the unemployment rate is at a record low. there are now almost twice as many vacant jobs as there were before the pandemic, which means wages are likely to increase as businesses compete for workers. the bad news is that canadians are facing high inflation for the first time in more than three decades. with inflation running close to 7 % and spreading to more and more everyday items, it ’ s squeezing budgets for families and putting pressure on businesses. high inflation here in canada and around the world largely results from global pressures such as supply chain disruptions and elevated commodity prices. but with the canadian economy starting to overheat, we can ’ t let demand get too far ahead of supply or we risk adding further to inflation. that is why the bank has taken concrete and decisive actions. we raised our policy rate and started the process of quantitative tightening — letting the bonds we purchased over the course of the last two years mature and roll off our balance sheet. interest rates remain low, but they are rising, and they will need to move higher still. these actions will moderate domestic demand so that a buildup in domestic prices doesn ’ t add to the inflationary pressures in canada that are coming from global factors. raising the policy rate will help moderate spending and rein in inflation. it will make borrowing costs more expensive, and we understand this has many canadians worried.

make borrowing cheaper for canadian consumers and business, and to stimulate the economy. so the bank committed to keeping the policy rate at 25 basis points until the economy recovered. the bank also initiated quantitative easing ( qe ) to complement a very low policy rate. through qe, the bank bought government bonds to push down long - term interest rates — those that matter for household mortgages and business loans. all of these steps — lowering the policy rate, purchasing government bonds and committing to keep rates low until the economy recovered — were taken to support canadians. they were not done to help commercial banks, nor were they done to fund government spending. they were done to lower the cost of borrowing for canadians, to provide the economy muchneeded stimulus at a time when it was facing a once - in - a - generation downturn. throughout this period of extraordinary policy action, the bank ramped up its approach to policy transparency and clear communication. we explained our policy actions as clearly as we could for canadians. we talked about how these actions worked, what their impact would be, what the conditions would be to exit them and how to judge their effectiveness. we were transparent about our asset purchase programs, regularly reporting the holdings on our balance sheet. we set up a dedicated webpage where the terms and conditions, and results of each purchase operation, were made available. and once we ended our purchase programs, we published full transaction - level details. these steps were all designed to make sure the public could follow our actions, and trust that we were doing what we said we ’ d do. maintaining public trust takes on a whole new imperative in situations like the covid - 19 pandemic when uncertainty is unusually high. the governor talked about this in a speech in the early days of the pandemic — how it was more important, yet at the same time more difficult, for central banks to be trusted sources of information and analysis in times of crisis. 2 trust is often tested in a crisis, and there is no question that central banks have been tested by the unpredictability brought on by the pandemic. our work relies on having a clear view of the future so we can generate our outlook for the economy and inflation. a clear view of the future has been hard to come by for anyone these last two years, and there were some things we got wrong. the intensity and persistence of supply chain disruptions have surprised us. what started as narrowly focused problems in a few key products