Canada recession talk is growing

If not for the fewer people hunting for jobs, Canada's unemployment rate would have risen to 7.2 per cent rather than 7.1 per cent. As it is, the unemployment rate has soared 230 basis points from the "cycle low" of 4.8 per cent in July 2022. Photo by iStockphoto / Getty Images/iStockphoto

Talk of a Canadian recession is cropping up in the notes of one top Bay Street economist.

“Never before in the annals of recorded Canadian economic history has the economy managed to escape an official recession with such a dramatic move off the cycle low,” David Rosenberg, chief executive at Rosenberg Research and Associates Inc., said in a note, referring to the dramatic downturn in Canada’s labour picture.

Among the sobering numbers from Friday’s labour force survey was a loss of 66,000 jo