Sunday, Nov. 08, 2009

Jobs rebound stalls in October

C anada is still mired in the economic recession as job losses unexpectedly grew again last month.

Defying predictions there would be a third consecutive month of job creation, Statistics Canada said more than 43,200 jobs were lost in October.

It was expected that another 10,000 jobs would be created but instead the loss dragged Canada's unemployment rate down by two-tenths of a point to 8.6 percent.

This almost reversed the 58,000 job gains from the previous two months.

More positive news was that all the jobs lost were part-time with a gain of 27,500 self-employment positions, resulting in a net increase of 16,500 full-time jobs.

Hourly wages also climbed by 3.3 percent over a year ago, well above the official inflation rate.

The stalling of the timid economic recovery pushed the numbers of jobs lost over the past year to 400,000, or 2.3 percent of the labor force.

Cases of the H1N1 swine flu are surging across Canada, three times higher now than a week ago.

"We expect to hear of more illness and deaths in the coming weeks as we go further into the second wave," said Dr. David Butler-Jones, Canada's chief public health officer.

Hardest hit are the western provinces, the territories and Newfoundland and Labrador.

Millions have received flu shots with lengthy waits at many clinics that are coping with a temporary vaccine shortage.

The flu has killed 101 people in Canada and put more than 1,700 people in hospitals since the virus first appeared in April.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, whose government has been widely criticized for not being prepared for the mass inoculations, has asked for patience in the scramble to vaccinate everyone who wants a flu shot.

News in brief

Canada's Conservative government is moving to end the controversial gun registry, calling it "wasteful" and "inefficient." A bill to end the program established by the Liberals passed first reading in the House of Commons. Believing it targets honest gun owners while doing nothing to fight crime, the bill would expunge the records on 7 million firearms.

The National Post survived a threatened closing after an Ontario Court approved parent company Canwest Global's request to transfer it to a new holding company. Canwest, with $4 billion in debts, said the transfer was necessary to its restructuring plans as creditors were no longer willing to keep funding the daily newspaper.

Facts and figures

Higher jobless figures and lower oil prices pulled Canada's dollar lower on Friday to 93.04 cents U.S. while the U.S. greenback returned $1.0748 Canadian, before bank exchange fees.

The key interest rate at the Bank of Canada is steady at 0.25 percent while the prime-lending rate is 2.25 percent.

Stock markets are higher, with Toronto's composite index at 11,234 points and the TSX Venture index at 1,338 points.

Lotto 6-49: (Wednesday) 2, 7, 8, 18, 20 and 37; bonus 12. (Oct. 31) 5, 24, 31, 34, 35 and 44; bonus 46. Lotto Max: (Oct. 30) 6, 9, 10, 14, 17, 18 and 19; bonus 46.

Regional briefs

A Toronto sales tax to counter the city's looming multimillion-dollar budget shortfall has been hinted by a City Council member. Budget chief Shelley Carroll didn't rule out that possibility while also calling for a share of revenues from combining the provincial and federal sales taxes in Ontario next summer.

The sudden collapse of British Columbia's Fraser River sockeye fishery will be the subject of a judicial inquiry. The federal government wants to know why more than 9 million sockeye salmon disappeared in the Pacific Ocean this year. There are suggestions that wild salmon picked up disease from fish farms or that water temperatures warmed.

Eastern Canada's first snowfall of the season cut power to thousands of homes and businesses in the Halifax area and Cape Breton for several hours on Friday. High winds also stopped the ferry between Caribou, Nova Scotia and Woods Islands, Prince Edward Island and some flights from Halifax.

Canadians wear poppy lapel pins around Remembrance Day (Nov. 11) to commemorate war veterans but few people knew the Royal Canadian Legion regulates all uses of the image.

The legion said the Dutch Oven Bakery in Cobourg, Ontario, has violated its trademark by filling an order of poppy-shaped cookies for the family of a Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan and said it could make no more of them.