What the mainstream media isn't telling us about the latest job loss #'s

The latest Canadian job numbers came out last week. The news certainly wasn't good, but upon further review something interesting jumped out at me. Popular media has been all over job losses in Canada as of late, and you have probably heard these stats many times in the news over the last couple of days:

- Employment fell by (-0.8%), almost all in full time, pushing the unemployment rate up 0.6 percentage points to 7.2%.
- This drop in employment exceeds any monthly decline during the previous economic downturns of the 1980s and 1990s.
- since October 2008, employment has fallen by (-1.2%). Core-age adults (25-54) have experienced the largest decline in employment, with men accounting for nearly two-thirds of the decline

Here's what jumped out at me as interesting:

- Compared with a year earlier, the average hourly wages of employees was up 4.8% in January of 2009. The most recent increase in the Consumer Price Index was 1.2%.

I am by no means an Economist, but can this be right? The average worker is making roughly 3.6% more in '09 than they did in '08, factoring out inflation? There is no debating that less people are working these days, but those who are working are making considerably more than they did last year. I know quite a few people who would be over the moon with the prospect of a near 5% raise!

Maybe things aren't as bad for everyone as the media would have us believe?

Source - Labour Force Survey