Manufacturing loses most jobs in 15 years

Canadian manufacturers struggled under the weight of a strong currency and foreign competition in January, cutting 41,600 jobs in January. It was the sharpest decline since February, 1991, according to Statistics Canada.

Of those January cuts, 33,000 occurred in Ontario, the country's manufacturing heartland. Those reductions come on top of more than 100,000 job cuts last year, with two thirds of those in Ontario.

The Canadian Labour Congress called the manufacturing decline a 'crisis.'

In related news, the US trade deficit widened in December, pushing the shortfall for 2005 to record levels.