Scary Unemployment Numbers

February 7, 2009 · Posted in Humour, News 

Welcome to the global recession, Canada.

A jump from 6.6% to 7.2% unemployment in one month.  Here’s some scary ways to think about the data:

  • Proportionally, about twice the rate of the United States’ job loss (suffice to say, they had alot of months before January which were proportionally worse than us).
  • A little more than 1 out of every 125 working people in Canada lost their job just after Christmas, as the holiday credit card bills started arriving.
  • It’s like if every man, woman and child in Guelph was working in December, then suddenly every single one of them got laid off in January.
  • The largest one month decline on record (including the downturns in the 80s and 90s).

Most of the losses are in Ontario.  Some in B.C. and Quebec (I live in Victoria and don’t know a single person who’s been laid off – I’m presuming most of our losses are happening in forestry and other resource industries, and some in tourism).

Anyway, it’s on.  Stock fresh food and water.  Warm blankets and sweaters.  Buy that backup generator and make sure those propane tanks are full.

I’m no economist, but I do remember hearing a few years back that the “Business Cycle” is speeding up.  This was caused by technological improvements and faster communications (now we can Twitter about the recession, after all).  I’m just hoping that this also means that recessions are shorter than before.  I remember one economist theorizing that business cycles could speed up so quickly in the future, that they could be weeks or days, rather than years.

It reminds me of that scene in The Fifth Element where Gary Oldman’s character (Zorg) lays off one million employees (including Bruce Willis) to slow down economic growth.  But I digress.

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Comments

  • Brian

    Do payouts count as job losses?

  • old white guy

    in the early 1980′s unemployment was as high as 20% in some provinces. the numbers statscan uses are very misleading. people on welfare are unemployed, people on ui are unemployed people who live with family and do not have a job and no benefits are unemployed. statscan does not count them all.

  • Ted

    It is actually much worse than that since the 130,000 number is seasonally adjusted (i.e. to take out seasonal fluctuations like crop hires in the summer or December hires). So the real number right now of Canadians without jobs (who are looking for work) is more like 250,000 to 350,000. And in this economy, the underlying assumption that those jobs will be there in the summer (to support the season adjustment) is highly questionable so these unadjusted unemployed will not show up in the statistics until the spring or summer.

  • wilson

    Guess it’s all how you look at it.
    Jan 2008 record employment, lowest unemployment rate in 35 years.
    Jan 2009 record one month drop in employment.

    The industries that have been struggling for the last 5 years took a nose dive.
    Under the cover of a recession, these industries can now make the hard decisions they should have made 5 years ago, (like union concessions) but couldn’t because of ….

  • http://zionofascism.wordpress.com anarchore

    Ponzi scheme victims, us.

    The end of the Lobby-Experiment is getting closer

    How the bail-out-system works

    The Fed runs out of gold and keeps buying bonds comparable with Zimbabwean government bonds

    Now unsecured commercial paper is also eligible as collateral

    After the Socialistic Experiment (communism) came the Neoliberalistic Experiment (globalism). Both systems enriched the Lobby and impoverished the masses. The Lobby has successfully diverted the assets of the world into their own pockets, using the most gigantic ponzi-scheme in the history of man, called globalism. The western states are seemingly prepared to sign so-called guarantees to banks who gambled not only with the money of their clients but parlayed capital they did not have in the first place. They committed themselves to bets, exceeding thousand fold their capital. Now, governments “bail” them allegedly out. The Lobby-System, the FED, makes the US-government to guarantee trillions of Dollars to Wall Street ponzi-schemers. In consequence, coming generations will have to make payments for notes, based on fabricated financial figures, created by Lehman and consorts in their computers. Never was there anything delivered in exchange, never anything invested in something one could call a real investment. It was only meant to grab the wealth of the nations, hence holding future generation in slavery. Without the holocaust-religion this could have never happened. These Jews became untouchables, godlike beings (survivors), whose criminal deeds were sacrosanct. If the Obama government is sincere to pay, he must print money to the extent of Zimbabwe’s currency bubble (Zimbabwe just introduced a 100-trillion dollar note). In that case banknotes will be less worth than wall paper. Therefore, it is probably meant to make the people paying up the guaranteed trillions over the coming centuries, in whatever currency, securing Lobby world dominance for eternity.
    Only the bailout by the federal government, together with the nationalization of the FED, can save the FED-System temporarily. In consequence the Jewish lobby would loose its strangling grip on the American people and the world. This recapitalization could be financed by taxes and by stopping the war-mongering policy, demanded by the Lobby.