The Canadian Economy

LOL

Well we have some good examples of it Conrad Black, Marthe Stewert, heheh

More bad news:

Jobless rate soars to 7.2% — analysts comment

Posted: February 06, 2009, 12:16 PM by Jamie Sturgeon



The Canadian unemployment rate climbed a much worse-than-expected 0.6% in January as a deteriorating economy shed another 129,000 last month, almost all in full-time positions, Statistics Canada reported Friday. The figure represents the worst single-month decline since the federal agency began tracking employment data in 1976. The jobless rate now sits at 7.2%. Here are some analysts' comments:

BENJAMIN REITZES, economist, BMO Capital Markets

"The figures are far worse than consensus and paint a bleak picture for the first quarter. The details were soft as well, with full-time positions tumbling 113,900. The unemployment rate surged 0.6 ppts to 7.2% — the highest since November 2004. Average hourly wage growth surprisingly accelerated to a 4-year high ... but don’t expect that to last with the big job losses. This bleak report will likely prompt a March rate cut by the Bank of Canada."

DAWN DESJARDINS, assistant chief economist, RBC Capital Markets

"Today's data just adds to the stream of increasingly grim reports on the state of Canada's economy. The Bank of Canada and federal government have made efforts to limit the extent of the downturn by implementing stimulative policies and although these actions will not prevent the economy from contracting in the near term, we expect they will contribute to a rebound by the second half of 2009."

DEREK HOLT, economist, Scotia Capital

"The optimists are taking body blows left, right and centre on what is a rapidly deteriorating picture for the Canadian economy. Manufacturing accounted for over 78% of the jobs losses in January as the sector shed 100,900 workers, the largest monthly decline in the industry on record. The bulk of the losses were in Ontario, Quebec and B.C. although factory employment was also down in Alberta and Manitoba."CHARMAINE BUSKAS, senior strategist, TD Securities

"Finance Minister [Jim] Flaherty was right when he said that today’s employment numbers would be ‘regrettable'. Indeed, they were. The Canadian labour market report for January was absolutely disastrous, pushing the unemployment rate to 7.2% from 6.6% in December. What makes the report even worse is the fact that most of these jobs were private sector, full-time jobs. The case continues to build for another 50 [basis-point] rate cut in March to leave the overnight rate at 0.5%, as it is clear that the economy has downshifted dramatically."

AVERY SHENFELD, senior economist, CIBC World Markets

"Factories still count. Manufacturing no longer carries the heft it had in bygone days in terms of its share of employment, but its ups and downs still have much to do with the business cycle. You don’t trigger a recession by people getting their hair cut less often. Shut down much of the auto sector, as Canada did in the last couple of months, and kick other manufacturing sectors to a lesser degree, and the resulting layoffs explained most of the overall jobs decline. The only good news here is that at least some of these jobs will return later this year when, however slowly, excess inventories of North American vehicles and other manufactured goods are winnowed down."

YANICK DESNOYERS, assistant chief economist, National Bank Financial

"Jobs anxiety will certainly increase in the coming months as more job cuts are expected. That said, with the infrastructure plan taking effect probably in the second half of the year and a very accommodative monetary policy coming from the Bank of Canada, we still believe that the current recession will be shorter than the two previous one and are forecasting a more subdued rise in unemployment rate, with a target between 8% and 9%. This contrasts with the double digits unemployment rate of the last two recessions."

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Has Winnipeg felt the economic downturn yet? I hear the city is in a relatively good positiion to weatheer the storm, unlike cities like Windsor, Oshawa, and other cities dominated by the automotive industry. Interestly enough, I have met 3 people in Southern Alberta from the Windsor, Ontario area. It used to be that people came to Alberta looking for high paying jobs. Now it appears, especially in Ontarioo, that people are starting to come to the province looking for any work, whatsoever...

"Manufacturing accounted for over 78% of the jobs losses in January as the sector shed 100,900 workers, the largest monthly decline in the industry on record. The bulk of the losses were in Ontario, Quebec and B.C. although factory employment was also down in Alberta and Manitoba"

Wow, gotta love free trade and globalization. Say goodbye to the middle-class, once all the manufacturing jobs are gone it's history. All that will be left is the service industry and trades, but who will be left to do the buying?

grumpyrom wrote:"Manufacturing accounted for over 78% of the jobs losses in January as the sector shed 100,900 workers, the largest monthly decline in the industry on record. The bulk of the losses were in Ontario, Quebec and B.C. although factory employment was also down in Alberta and Manitoba"

Wow, gotta love free trade and globalization. Say goodbye to the middle-class, once all the manufacturing jobs are gone it's history. All that will be left is the service industry and trades, but who will be left to do the buying?

The US is pretty much responsible for the recession. When you continue to invade countries that have done little or nothing to endanger the average American, it's only a matter of time before America goes the way of thr Roman Empire. Giving unlimited credit to pretty much everyone that has no record of bankruptcy didn't help the situation. And let's not forget the Trillions of dollars they owe the rest of the world.

What's really sad is most of this could have easily been prevented in Canada. If we had only expanded out trading base with China, India, and Europe, perhaps we would have weathered the storm. You can't expect to avoid a recession that has hit the US hard the last year and a half, when 80% of the trade you do is with them. If Americans can't afford to buy Canadian goods, we're screwed.

Actually Canada has diversified her customer base. She did grow her trade with China and India. We also have an economy based more on resources than the US. Those are a couple reasons Canada has fared as well as it has. Of course Canada is not immune to it. But your point is well made. We need to continually lessen our economic dependence on the USA. Our economy is still too greatly tied to that of the US. That is inevitable. Likely as it always will be.

That said, we can sh1t on free trade and globalization until the cows come home. Why do you suppose Canada and her people are so prosperous today? Even with this disastrous recession Canada has 7.2% unemployment and Manitoba 4.3%. It is bound to get worse before it gets better but we are very fortunate it is not as bad as many many countries are faring around the world. Canada is the envy of the world right now. Mostly IMO because we've a more diversified and balanced economy.

Just curious grumpyrom, what would see happen that would protect Canada from free trade and globalization and the supposed evils it has wrought upon us?

New home sales in Toronto down for a 17 year low in Toronto- Now that is not good news!
http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=1336191
As bad as some people think Winnipeg is, I think our slow and easy wins the race works just great here!
DeanK- that cut and paste is so exciting- I wish I could have figured out how to move a picture over, but the instructions weren't simple enough!

I right clicked on the picture off that page

I chose properties

in the properties box that pops I notice the "URL" section. I left clicked and selected the entire URL... right clicked and chose copy

then... when posting the 7th icon from the right...(if you hover over it a pop up says image).... I click that... paste the URL and BAMO!... picture goodness

or at least... usually pictire goodness.. not sure why it wont work this time

ooo misleading link so that we cant copy.... bad paper... bad... sit.. sit.. stay... good boy

nyah nyah FP!

yeah.. I was just too lazy
thanks Rat

heh.. Sunshine girl used to try to stop you from copying too..

Did they give up because it's futile?

I have found that with proper investments that I made when the market was strong that this recession has been the best time for me to buy large purchases. Like I just ordered a new car and this make and model was almost $20,000 more a year and half ago. If people saved properly for these situtations then it really isn't to bad. I figure that with what I invested and saved that my life style ( not that it is different the any other avg. persons) will not have to change for about 2 years. After that I will have to adjust accordingly to markets. But if things look better by then, then this will not have a huge impact on my "Style of living".

HurtinAlbertan wrote:
The US is pretty much responsible for the recession. When you continue to invade countries that have done little or nothing to endanger the average American, it's only a matter of time before America goes the way of thr Roman Empire.

That may be the case, but would you rather a country such as India or China to fill the void that may be left by the US? I'm not so sure, considering their records for human rights and environmental issues

Obama has announced a date for the U.S. pull-out from Iraq. That will stop the blood flow a bit and should help the economy recover I reckon.

Best news in a long time.

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/02/27/obama-iraq.html

I suspect many of the Iraq based soldiers will simply slide over to Afghanistan. Still, it's a good thing as they had no business in Iraq to begin with.

Did I miss something?
What is the USA doing in Iraq?

Losing lives

WhAT GETS ME IS THE BIAS THAT THE reporters show! They talk about the war in Iraq, but there is no war, there never was a war, unless you are a wimp reporter, which all of them are! The U.S. invaded a soveriegn country , run by a bad guy, in the U.S.'s opinion.
That bad guy was supprted by the U.S. when the bad guy was fighting Iran for 10 long years.So many killed and nothing was solved. The US invaded , but because it was the US all other nations couldn't do a damn thing except complain to no one.
Might was right.
Now 4,000 Americans are dead, 100,000 to 500,000 (we'll never know) Iraqis are dead, 2,000,000 Iraqis are displaced. The whole economy of Iraq is ruined, and there are more killings, more terrorists, in Iraq because there is no sadistic leader to keep control.
Way to go you stupid U.S.A. And now you are getting out, and now let the real killing and bloodletting begin!
God is Great!
U.S.A. is great!
God help us!
God help the Iraqis! Please!

Canada may be past worst of recession: economists


OTTAWA - The unexpected addition of almost 36,000 new jobs to the Canadian economy in April, a surging dollar and rising markets, might mean the worst of the recession is past us, say economists.
http://www.winnipegsun.com/news/canada/2009/05/08/9401381-sun.html

At least it is good news for a change .

City Labour Markets Reveal Much about Canada’s Economy




May 12, 2009 - Alex Carrick, Reed Construction Data

The latest labour market statistics, for April 2009, confirm impressions about what is happening in the economy regionally. The ten top urban labour markets in Canada can be separated into three groupings. The first small such grouping is Saskatchewan’s two major centres. That province is continuing to do well even in recession as a result of its diverse resource economy, which includes uranium, oil and gas, grains and potash. Group One − Saskatchewan As a result, Regina is the number one labour market in Canada in CanaData’s composite ranking that looks at both employment growth (highest to lowest) and unemployment rate (lowest to highest). Saskatoon is number three. Another key indicator of a local economy is house prices. New home prices are monitored by Statistics Canada and in the latest reading, homes in Regina are 12.8% year over year, but homes in Saskatoon are -11.2%. Group Two – Government Towns The second grouping in the top ten is government towns. It helps if you are working or seeking employment in a city that is a federal or provincial capital. Regina, Halifax, Edmonton, Winnipeg, St. John’s and Ottawa are six such cities among the top 10 labour markets. Home prices in St. John’s Newfoundland are 20.8%, a real anomaly in a country where the average new home sales price is -2.4%. Group Three − Atlantic Region Cities There is one more major grouping among the Top 10 labour markets. In fourth, seventh and eighth positions are three cities in the Atlantic region – Halifax, Saint John NB and St. John’s NL. These centres are not used to being among the hottest labour markets in the country. More accurately, however, it may not be that they are so hot as that the recession has achieved greater equality among all the regions of the country. Québec and Ontario Elsewhere in the country, weak commodity prices in forestry and aluminum are still retarding labour markets in such Québec centres as Saguenay and Trois-Rivières. But it is the decline in auto sector sales, assembly and parts, that is holding back city employment the most and this is occurring along key highway corridors in Ontario. Caught in this trap are Oshawa, Kitchener, London, Windsor and St. Catharines-Niagara. The latter city is also being held back by declines in cross-border traffic, especially tourism from the U.S. Toronto and Montréal, measured according to both job growth and unemployment, are standing just about equal at the moment. Toronto has a financial sector that is in better shape than many other parts of the world. Also, revival in the stock market is good news for the Queen City’s economy. Montréal has an aerospace sector that has seen some job losses counterbalanced by gains due to international sales in new product areas. Two Lunch-bucket Cities − Hamilton and Sudbury The labour markets in two traditional lunch-bucket towns, Hamilton and Sudbury (steel and base metals) are hanging in better than might be expected, right in the middle among Canada’s 27 census metropolitan areas. This is despite temporary steel mill closings and some sharp metal price declines, although copper has been recovering slightly of late. Calgary and Edmonton The recent rise in oil prices, from $40 USD per barrel to $60 (i.e., 50%), is very good for the energy sector in Alberta. Employment in fifth-place Edmonton has stayed strong, but Calgary has dropped back to ninth position. New home prices in both cities have been on the decline, -12.3% in Edmonton and -8.7% in Calgary, year over year. But these are from speculative highs that were established in the boom times of a year and more ago.

I think I will apply for jobs in Saskatchewan