American Job Numbers Up, Canadian Numbers Down

Are we beginning to see a reversal in the tale of two economies?

The American economy added 243,000 jobs in January, lowering the unemployment rate from 8.5 per cent to 8.3 per cent – the same level it was when Barack Obama first took office in 2009. Those 243,000 jobs vastly outperformed most economists' predictions of about 150,000 jobs being added in the first month of 2012, with the bulk of the new positions coming from the private sector, and manufacturing, hospitality, and business services in particular. All of this is shaping up rather nicely for the president that's overseen the last three years, despite no president being re-elected with unemployment above seven per cent since Franklin Roosevelt back in the 1930s.

And while the U.S. might be turning the page on a chapter full of economic frailty, Canada, whose leadership has boasted about the country's soundness and stability through the recession, can't say the same. Unemployment north of the border ticked up once again from 7.5 per cent to 7.6 per cent, as only 2,300 jobs were created in January – well short of the 25,000 that had been predicted. Not helping the numbers for February is the closure of a manufacturing plant in London, Ont., that produced diesel trains. Electro Motive, owned by Caterpillar, locked out 460 workers last month because they refused to take a 50-per-cent pay cut. The plant, which Prime Minister Stephen Harper used as a backdrop to unveil corporate tax cuts a couple years ago, will now be closing because labour issues could not be resolved. Asking your employees to take home half of what they made the year before tends to have that effect. Maybe the now unemployed workers can move to the greener pastures south of the border.