The Labour Force survey is out and it paints a pretty grim picture of the state of the labour market in Canada.
January 2009 (Previous release)Employment fell by 129,000 in January (-0.8%), almost all in full time, pushing the unemployment rate up 0.6 percentage points to 7.2%. This drop in employment exceeds any monthly decline during the previous economic downturns of the 1980s and 1990s (emphasis added).
Ontario, British Columbia and Quebec led the country in terms of absolute job losses. Equally as important is that job losses were concentrated among the full-time 24-54 age group which is the stable core of the labour market. It should be noted that the unemployment rate is an understatement because labour force participation rates also declined.
Graph: Statistics Canada
Graph: Statistics Canada
Relentlessly Progressive Political Economy 
Clearly your statistics and graphs are just being alarmist.
One economist in the Globe said something to the effect that “if you take the manufacturing data out it is not so bad.” There is something to it though insofar as the next shoe to drop is service sector unemployment.
Robert is such a joker! Travis, I laughed when I read the economist from the Globe trying to find “the silver lining” in the Labour Force survey.
Dropping like a stone and sure, we will recover next year with a swift uptake or I will eat my classical economics credentials. Sure, thud, munch, puke!
Yeah but don’t worry about it. Fearless Leader Steve himself promises that his ginormous deficit budget will save as many as 190,000 jobs in total and we won’t even be at that point for at least another week!