Canada: Job Losses Worst on Record

by Blue Crush | February 6, 2009 at 06:00 am

855 views | 78 Recommendations | 13 comments

OTTAWA - The recession hit home last month, as a massive 129,000 workers joined the unemployed, more than half of those in Ontario. The province's unemplyment rate rose to 8%, up from 7.2% in December.

Across the country, it was the worst monthly employment drop in at least three decades, topping figures seen in either of the two previous recessions in the 1980s and 1990s. Almost all the jobs were full-time and were mostly in a battered manufacturing sector that has been most affected by the severe downturn in the United States.
The carnage was everywhere. Ontario shed 71,000 jobs, half in the manufacturing sector. British Columbia and Quebec workers were also hit hard with losses of 35,000 and 26,000 respectively.

Since October, the country has lost 213,000 jobs, wiping out last year's gains. Economists had been forecasting a much tamer number. "The expectation was for a loss of 40,000... this is three times the expectation," BNN's Michael Kane said Friday morning.

Statistics Canada officials were scrambling to describe the number of firsts – all bad – that January's labour survey created.
It was the largest employment decrease since the agency began keeping what it described as comparable figures in 1976. And the manufacturing loss was the worst single month contraction on record.

Job losses were also recorded in the following industries: furniture, computer and electronic, non-metallic mineral product, electrical equipment, appliance and components, clothing manufacturing, transportation and warehousing, business, building and other support services.

The only industry with notable gains was health care and social assistance, which saw a boost of 31,000 jobs.

Jobs cities:
Unemployment numbers for major cities. (Previous month in brackets.

— St. John’s 7.1 (7.2)

— Halifax 5.6 (5.3

— Montreal 7.8 (7.5

— Ottawa 4.5 (4.6)

— Toronto 7.8 (7.3)

— Windsor10.9 (10.1)

— Winnipeg 4.5 (4.5)

— Calgary 4.1 (3.9)

— Vancouver 5.1 (4.8)

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Paschen

at 06:28 on February 6th, 2009

Well, it seems to be 8% now in all industrialized Countries, being the Minimum. Some have already excited 8%. Once we will reach the 10% in any Country we will face unrest and revolts.

Blue Crush

at 06:35 on February 6th, 2009

Windsor, Ontario has gone over 10%, and that's before the rotating layoffs at GM, Chrysler were announced this morning. Sad, and the impact is just starting ...

mazevedo

at 08:13 on February 6th, 2009

Pretty sad situation, thanks for sharing. Something very important to keep an eye on!

tallison

at 08:19 on February 6th, 2009

Don't forget the economic, food and medicine blockade of Iraq and Gaza, what suffering it caused. What you give one day come backs to you., sometime in mysterious ways.

Barry Artiste

at 09:33 on February 6th, 2009

Truly tragic, yet for some reason the Federal and Provincial Governments feel bringing in close to 300,000 immigrants this year from all parts of the world will help supplement their own voting strategy, while Canadians go homeless, hungry and without jobs. Something is seriously wrong when we take in the world at the detriment of our our populace's welfare.

Roy C

at 09:40 on February 6th, 2009

And Obama has yet to throw out the 800,000 H1B visas that give jobs to foreigners in companies such as Intel and Microsoft.

This is the elite's mentality who want to run a "one-world" for the elite where they answer to no one.

Amy Judd

at 09:57 on February 6th, 2009

So scary - it's climbing too rapidly

duo

at 11:38 on February 6th, 2009

FOLKS LOSING JOBS IS BAD. FOLKS WORKING HARD AND HAVING SOMEONE STEAL THEIR WORK IS WORSE.

What happened to my article, NowPublic.com? Get it out of backup right now, please.

Your search - http://nowpublic.com/world/american-concentration-camps-proposed-congress-h-r-645 - did not match any documents.

The article is being censored to death - not to protect the info. about the camps, either. On Care2, where it should be crossed posted to NowPublic to read my article, people are directed to the article I referenced. When I discovered that and commented here in my article about that censorship, THE WHOLE DARN ARTICLE JUST DISAPPEARED. DO YOU KNOW HOW THAT COULD HAPPEN?

GET MY ARTICLE OUT OF YOUR BACKUP RIGHT NOW, PLEASE.

I WILL NOT HAVE ANYONE CONTINUE TO CURTAIL MY FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND FREEDOM OF PRESS.

CALL ME AND LEAVE A MESSAGE. I AM GOING TO FILE A COMPLAINT.

770.651.8413.

Mary Neal
http://wrongfuldeathoflarryneal.com

Amy Judd

at 11:50 on February 6th, 2009

Hi Mary,

We can all see your article - I just pasted the link you put above into my browser and it came up - we checked with everyone in the office. We aren't censoring it at all. It is there.

158

at 12:08 on February 6th, 2009

Thanks for an informative story.

Nutty Nancy (not verified)

at 13:05 on February 6th, 2009

This is scary for Canada and the US.

Yellow Guitar

at 14:01 on February 6th, 2009

Astonishing that Toronto and Montreal now have higher jobless rates than St. Johns. Also weird that health care jobs increased. So now we're unemployed and getting sicker.

If the trend continues and the 'bail out package' fails, maybe we'll consider forcing babyboomers to retire early, at least those who won't be forced into poverty. A recent report on CBC claimed there will be a job shortage in the range of 100 000 by 2012 due to retiring boomers. Forcing the issue a bit early might make sense.

It would also seem likely that immigrant workers on special permits will be sent home.

Thanks for posting the article.

Blue Crush

at 18:37 on February 6th, 2009

Thank you for your comments. Here's the reaction of Finance Minister Jim Flaherty this afternoon:

"The United States economy has not hit bottom," Mr. Flaherty told reporters Friday in Toronto, adding that Canadians should brace themselves for a tough year. "This is why we need to get this budget bill through Parliament as quickly as possible," he said. The bill still must go through committees and the Senate before it can be formally approved.

Flaherty’s budget, delivered Jan. 27, called for $40 billion in new spending and tax cuts over the next two years to help pull Canada out of recession.

And Prime Minister Harper, speaking from Miramichi, New Brunswick.:

"We’ve got to be able to stick to the course. We cannot have in Parliament, quite frankly, instability every week and every month, every time there’s a new number and people demanding a different plan," he said.

"We continue to believe this is the action we need ... and we’re not going to be blown off track every time there’s some bad news."

source: Canada.com