CANADA: Recession Hits Home As 129,000 Workers Lose Their Jobs In January
Recession Hits Home As 129,000 Workers Lose Their Jobs In January
Friday February 6, 2009
CityNews.ca Staff
The news is neither uplifting nor unexpected.
Approximately 129,000 Canadians lost their jobs in January as the recession hit home in a big way. The jobless rate surged to 7.2 percent following the worst monthly employment drop in three decades.
"It's going to make consumers a very cautious bunch of folks. Going forward we will probably see consumer spending going on the decline at least over the first half of this year," notes Derek Holt, VP at Scotia Capital.
"Don't forget that housing markets are also weakening. People are taking hits to their financial portfolios. This is not the environment on which people are really going to go out on a limb in their risk-taking behaviour. Our forecast is the Canadian economy retreats at least 1.5 percent this year in terms of the sum value of all goods and services produced in the economy."
Most of the positions lost were full-time and in the manufacturing sector, one of the hardest hit areas since the economic slowdown began last October. Ontario lost the lion's share of jobs in January, shedding 71,000 positions, while B.C. was down by 35,000 jobs and Quebec lost 26,000.
Since October, the country has lost a staggering 213,000 jobs.
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty hinted that the news would be bad on Thursday when he said the month-end figures would be "regrettable."
"Canadians ought to expect that this is going to be a difficult year," he added.
It was the largest employment setback since Statistics Canada began keeping what it referred to as comparable figures in 1976.
The jump from the 6.6 percent unemployment rate in December wasn't record-setting, but it was the biggest monthly increase since 1992.
"The headline was disastrous in all frankness," Holt adds. "This was the worst monthly pace of job losses we've ever seen in the Canadian economy."
CityNews learned that Chrysler will idle four plants starting Monday in response to low consumer demand, including one in Brampton, adding to the grim news on the job front.
If there's anything positive to report in all of this, it's that Canadians who are still employed are earning more than they were a year ago at this time, a jump of 4.8 percent.
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Here's what happened provincially (previous month in brackets):
- Newfoundland - 14.3 (13.7)
- Prince Edward Island - 11.9 (11.7)
- Nova Scotia - 8.8 (8.2)
- New Brunswick - 8.7 (8.6)
- Quebec - 7.7 (7.3)
- Ontario - 8.0 (7.2)
- Manitoba - 4.6 (4.3)
- Saskatchewan - 4.1 (4.2)
- Alberta - 4.4 (4.2)
- British Columbia - 6.2 (5.3)
- St. John's, N.L. - 7.1 (7.2)
- Halifax - 5.6 (5.3)
- Saint John, N.B. - 6.6 (6.6)
- Saguenay, Que. - 8.5 (7.7)
- Quebec - 3.8 (3.9)
- Trois-Rivieres, Que. - 7.1 (6.5)
- Sherbrooke, Que. - 6.7 (6.7)
- Montreal - 7.8 (7.5)
- Gatineau, Que. - 5.2 (4.4)
- Ottawa - 4.5 (4.6)
- Kingston, Ont. - 4.9 (4.4)
- Toronto - 7.8 (7.3)
- Hamilton - 8.0 (7.0)
- Kitchener, Ont. - 8.4 (7.9)
- London, Ont. - 7.8 (7.3)
- Oshawa, Ont. - 8.0 (7.8)
- St.Catharines-Niagara, Ont. - 8.8 (8.8)
- Sudbury, Ont. - 5.8 (5.6)
- Thunder Bay, Ont. - 6.9 (6.6)
- Windsor, Ont. - 10.9 (10.1)
- Winnipeg - 4.5 (4.5)
- Regina - 3.2 (3.6)
- Saskatoon - 4.2 (4.0)
- Calgary - 4.1 (3.9)
- Edmonton - 3.8 (3.6)
- Abbotsford, B.C. - 5.8 (5.5)
- Vancouver - 5.1 (4.8)
- Victoria - 4.0 (3.7)
- Unemployment rate: 7.2 per cent (6.6)
- Number unemployed: 1,310,100 (1,210,100)
- Number working: 16,982,000 (17,111,000)
- Youth (15-24 years) unemployment: 12.7 (12.9)
- Men (25 plus) unemployment: 6.7 per cent (5.8)
- Women (25 plus) unemployment: 5.4 per cent (5.0)