A woman checks out her options at a job centre. Tens of thousands of Canadians lost their jobs last month, bringing the country’s unemployment rate to 8.6 per cent. — Photo by The Associated Press

Canada's economy shed more than 43,000 jobs last month in a clear indication that the struggling economy is still feeling the aftershock of the deep recession that erupted a year ago.

The unexpectedly large job loss - the consensus of economists was for a gain of 10,000 - pushed Canada's unemployment rate up two-tenths of a point to 8.6 per cent and reverses much of the previous two months' jobs rebound.

Rising unemployment in the early stages of a timid recovery from recession is not considered unusual, but the October data revealed unusual weakness given the hopeful signals of the previous two months.

Not only did 43,200 jobs vanish into thin air in October - the result would have been worse without the pickup of 27,500 in self-employment during the month.

That meant there were 70,700 fewer actual employees in October - 45,200 fewer in the private sector and 25,600 fewer in the public sector.

However, the result somewhat supports Statistics Canada's lesser-known industry tracking, which has recently reported mounting job losses even while the better-known labour market survey was detecting increases.

Bank of Montreal economist Michael Gregory said he was prepared for a weaker number than the consensus, but the extent of the job losses still came as a surprise to him.

And following a flat gross domestic product reading for July, followed by a slight contraction in August, he said there are real doubts about whether Canada has emerged from recession at all.

The Bank of Canada and private sector economists have predicted the economy would grow in the July-September quarter, after three negative quarters, but there has been widespread grassroots debate about whether the recession ended.

"Technically, we could still be in recession," Gregory said. "You are in recession until there is evidence you are not."

In a weak economy, economists discount self-employment gains as mostly involuntary, the result of enterprising Canadians who have tried but cannot find regular employment.

CIBC chief economist Avery Shenfeld said October's job decline almost reverses the 58,000 job gains Statistics Canada found the previous two months.

"That the earlier run-up may have, in part, been statistical noise, " he said.

"Put the last three months together, and the trend shows very small net hiring on average, a result that is much more consistent with the limited growth we've thus far seen in economic output."

Not all the details in the October data were gloomy, however.

Statistics Canada said all of the job losses were part-time, and including self-employment, there was a net increase of 16,500 full-time jobs.

As well, hourly wages were 3.3 per cent higher than a year ago, quite a bit higher than Canada's official inflation rate.

But that's where the good news ended. The agency said the October data pushes the job loss total since October 2008, when the global recession began in Canada, to 400,000, or 2.3 per cent of the labour force.

The employment decline in the private sector has been more precipitous, a 4.1 per cent fall.

"Since October 2008, employment has fallen in most industries, with the steepest declines in manufacturing (-11 per cent), natural resources (-11 per cent), construction (-5.8 per cent) and transportation and warehousing (-5.8 per cent)," the agency wrote.

Canada's peak-to-trough data still look good in comparison to the U.S., but last month it was Canada that came off worse.

The U.S. said Friday 190,000 jobs vanished from its economy in October.

Given that the U.S. labour force is nine times larger than Canada's, "the October numbers were far worse north of the border," said economist Erin Weir of the United Steelworkers union.

The majority of the losses last month came in retail and wholesale trade, which shed 31,000 jobs. Employment in the natural resources sector also fell by 11,000, continuing a downward trend that began in February.

On the plus side, construction jobs edged up, as did transportation and warehousing, while the weak manufacturing sector was mostly unchanged.

Regionally, Alberta, British Columbia and Newfoundland and Labrador suffered the greatest number of job losses proportionally.

UNEMPLOYMENT BY PROVINCE

The national unemployment rate was 8.6 per cent in October. Here's what happened provincially (previous month in brackets):
17.0Newfoundland and Labrador (15.3)
12.0Prince Edward Island (11.8)
9.3Nova Scotia (9.5)
8.5New Brunswick (8.1)
8.5Quebec (8.8)
9.3Ontario (9.2)
5.8Manitoba (5.3)
5.3Saskatchewan (4.6)
7.5Alberta (7.1)
8.3British Columbia (7.4)