THE CANADIAN PRESS

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Some facts about recessions:

What is a recession: A contraction of the economy. Technically it is defined as two or more successive quarters of economic shrinkage.

Length: Usually from 18 to 24 months.

Signs of recession: A drop in GDP, real income, employment, industrial output and wholesale and retail sales.

Impact: With joblessness up, more social spending needed for welfare, employment insurance and other programs.

Government: Comes under pressure to implement direct job-creating spending.

Depression: A sustained recession may become a depression and last several years. The Great Depression of the 1930s lasted from 1930 to about 1938, with unemployment close to 25 per cent.

Recent recessions: Early 1990s - triggered by the Wall Street stock market collapse of 1987 and the end of a real estate bubble. The Canadian economy shrank one per cent and the jobless rate rose over 10 per cent for 1991 and 1992.

Early 1980s: Huge increase in interest rates to fight the oil price shock inflation led to a massive recession, with unemployment of 13 per cent in late 1982 and a restructuring of steel, auto and other industrial sectors.

Quote: "Our manufacturing sector has been decimated and many of those jobs aren't coming back." - Canadian Auto Workers economist Jim Stanford, whose industry has been battered by thousands of job cuts at auto plants and parts factories because of a slump in the U.S. housing market.