It was called the next Great Depression, then dubbed the Great Recession.
Turns out, in Canada it was more like the Average Recession, according to a paper published Thursday.
Canada's 2008-2009 recession was “less severe and shorter” than in other G7 nations, said Philip Cross, chief economic analyst at Statistics Canada and author of its year-end review.
Between the third quarter of 2008 and the third quarter of last year, the country's real GDP in Canada fell 3.3 per cent, compared with 3.7 per cent in the United States and bigger declines in Europe and Japan.
The recession was also shorter than elsewhere. Statscan tentatively says the recession in Canada lasted three quarters – the last quarter of 2008 and the first two quarters of last year, though those dates could be subject to revision. The downturn in other G7 countries lasted anywhere from four to, in the case of the United Kingdom, six quarters.
In Canada, Mr. Cross refers to it as the average recession. “With the declines in GDP and to a lesser extent jobs, this was a notable recession,” he said. “But it was less severe than the previous two and markedly less severe than in most other countries.”
Employment, too, didn't take nearly the same beating as it did around the globe, nor were job losses as severe as they were in previous downturns. Canada's unemployment rate rose 2.5 percentage points, peaking at 8.7 per cent last summer – a smaller increase than the 4.2-percentage-point rise in the 1990-1992 recession and the 6-percentage-point spike in 1981-1982.
Part of the reason may stem from companies shortening work-weeks rather than laying people off, the report said.
