The first month of 2009 resulted in the largest job losses in over 30 years.  143,000 workers lost their jobs in Canada during January according to Statistics Canada.  The unemployment rate rose to 7.2% from 6.6% in December.  TD forecasted job losses around 300,000 for 2009- that figure may be off since we have lost almost half that number of jobs in the first month of 2009. 

Mosat of the job losses came from Ontario (71,000).  This is no surprise since the bulk of the job losses came from the goods-producing sectors.  The manufacturing industry in Canada lost over 100,000 jobs in the past month. 

There were slight increases in health care workers with approximately 30,000 health care and social assistance jobs added in the past month.  The finance, insurance, and real estate industry added 13,000 jobs in the past month followed by the food service and accomodation industry adding approximately 11,000 jobs. 

One interesting trend is the increase in self-employed workers.  There was an increase of 14,000 self-employed workers from December to January.  As people lose their jobs, they may be forced to start their own home-based businesses to make extra money after being unable to find other stable employment.  Much of this likely consists of precarious work- work that may pay lower than minimum wage and is highly insecure.