Ever since the advent of present-day record-keeping procedures, Canada's January layoff figures - of an overwhelming 129,000 - mark the country's worst ever one-month job-cut figures till date. The confounding figures shocked even the economists, who were expecting around 40,000 layoffs for the month!

The national unemployment rate appallingly jumped to 7.2 per cent from the December figures of 6.6 per cent. According to Le Petit of Statistics Canada, what is even more worrying is that these deadly numbers do not include the recent job cuts.

Along with the job-cuts, the labor force also contracted by 29,000, implying that disheartened people had stopped searching jobs. In addition, nearly 14,000 people now categorize themselves as self-employed.

Bearing the maximum impact of the layoffs is Ontario and its powerful manufacturing base - with nearly 71,000 jobs cut chiefly in that sector. Others that bore the brunt of brutal January were British Columbia with 35,000 job-cuts; and Quebec with 26,000.

Terming southwestern Ontario as "ground zero" for the manufacturing catastrophe, economist Jim Stanford of the Canadian Auto Workers union anticipates a double-digit unemployment rate in Canada by 2010.

Stanford said that the economy is "into a humdinger of a recession," and added: "This is the beginning of a straight year of declining employment. We are in early days as far as the impact of the financial crisis on the real economy."