News from Canada:

Canada’s lost close to 71,000 jobs last month - the worst single month drop in a quarter century - in a clear indication the U.S. recession is beginning to wreck havoc on manufacturers and workers in central Canada.

Almost all the job losses were in Canada’s manufacturing heartland. Ontario shed 66,000 workers - 42,000 of those factory jobs - pushing the province’s unemployment rate up six-tenths of a point to 7.1 per cent.

Overall, the Canadian jobless rate edged up to 6.3 per cent from 6.2 per cent in October, but would have been worst if not for the fact that 48,000 fewer Canadians were looking for work in November.

News from the USA:

The news from south of the border was no better, with the U.S. reporting a 533,000 jobs contraction last month after losing 320,000 in October and 403,000 in September. The U.S. is down 1.9 million jobs since last December.

After years of impressive expansion, the Canadian economy has ground to a halt, with little growth in the first three quarters of this year and economic decline in the current quarter. Falling commodity prices, a comparatively high dollar and the impact of the slumping U.S. housing and auto sectors have dealt a blow to the forestry, mining and manufacturing sectors across Canada.

In the United States, the recession appears to be getting worse.

“The economy has been slowing since December 2007. The real question is whether the economy is in a recession or depression?,” said Peter Morici, an economics professor with the University of Maryland school of business.

How do these stats stack up historically?

It was the worst one-month performance in the U.S. since 1974. For Canada, it was the most jobs lost in one month since June 1982, although as a proportion of the market it was the ninth worst since the recession of the early 1980s.

That recession was the worst for Canada and the United States since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Job losses in steel, auto and other primary industries, combined with soaring interest rates, sent the unemployment rate soaring to 13 per cent, more than twice the current rate.

On the bright side, sales of alcohol will set records this holiday season!

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