Late 2000s recession in the Americas

North America was one of the focal points of the global, Great Recession. While Canada has managed to return its economy nearly to the levels it enjoyed prior to the recession, the United States and Mexico are still under the influence of the worldwide economic slowdown. The cost of staple items dropped dramatically in the United States as a result of the recession.

The United States entered 2008 during a housing market correction, a subprime mortgage crisis and a declining dollar value. In February, 63,000 jobs were lost, a 5-year record. In September, 159,000 jobs were lost, bringing the monthly average to 84,000 per month from January to September 2008.

Canada was one of the last industrialized nations to enter into a downturn. GDP growth was negative in Q1, but positive in Q2 and Q3 of 2008. The recession officially started in Q4. The almost 1-year delay of the start of the recession in Canada relative to the U.S. is largely explained by two factors. First, Canada has a strong banking sector not weighed-down by the same degree of consumer-related debt issues that existed in the United States. The United States economy collapsed from within, while the Canadian economy was being hurt by its trade relationship with the United States. Second, commodity prices continued to rise through to June 2008, supporting a key component of the Canadian economy and delaying the start of recession. In early December 2008, the Bank of Canada, in announcing that it was lowering its central bank interest rate to the lowest level since 1958, also declared that Canada's economy was entering in recession. The Bank of Canada has since announced that it has two consecutive months of GDP decline (Oct -0.1% & Nov -0.7%). The country's unemployment rate could rise to 7.5% in the next two years, according to the latest OECD report.

On July 23, 2009, the Bank of Canada officially declared the recession to be over in Canada. However, the true economic recovery did not begin until November 30, 2009. The Canadian economy would expand at an annualized rate of 6.1% in the first quarter (January–April) of 2010, surpassing analyst expectations and marking the best growth rate since 1999. Economists had expected annualized GDP growth of 5.9% in the last quarter, up from 5% in last year's fourth quarter (September–December 2009). The growth in the first quarter is the third straight quarter of economic expansion in Canada, coming on the heels of three consecutive quarters of contraction. March growth came in at 0.6%, ahead of the 0.5% estimate. 215,900 new jobs have been created in the winter and early spring months of 2010 alone - in the traditional period of time where the Canadian economy is at its most stagnant.

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