“Welcome to the he-​​cession,” wrote the Globe and Mail recently, cit­ing employ­ment sta­tis­tics indi­cat­ing that — at least for now — the grow­ing reces­sion in Canada is affect­ing men more than women.

Although the over­all Canadian unem­ploy­ment rate increased in March to 8% (the high­est rate in seven years), the job sec­tors in Canada that have been hard­est hit are con­struc­tion, man­u­fac­tur­ing and nat­ural resources — jobs with a higher per­cent­age of male employ­ees. More women are employed in ser­vices jobs, such as edu­ca­tion and health care, that are less vul­ner­a­ble to the busi­ness cycle.

More than 27,000 Canadian men lost jobs in March alone, while the unem­ploy­ment rate for women remained largely unchanged. And as the arti­cle concluded,

That’s meant a domes­tic rearrange­ment for many Canadian house­holds, as newly stuck-​​at-​​home hus­bands kiss their work­ing wives good­bye each morning.

A report issued a year ago by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions — chaired by Senator Edward M. Kennedy — con­cluded that in the U.S., the sit­u­a­tion was reversed. “Early signs,” accord­ing to this report, indi­cated that “this reces­sion is hit­ting women harder than men. They have suf­fered more job losses and a larger reduc­tion in wages in recent months than the gen­eral population.”

More recently, though, the New York Times reported a some­what dif­fer­ent reces­sion effect:

Women are poised to sur­pass men on the nation’s pay­rolls, tak­ing the major­ity for the first time in American history.

The rea­son has less to do with gen­der equal­ity than with where the ax is falling.

The pro­por­tion of women who are work­ing has changed very lit­tle since the reces­sion started. But a full 82 per­cent of the job losses have befallen men, who are heav­ily rep­re­sented in dis­tressed indus­tries like man­u­fac­tur­ing and construction.

Perhaps now, it’s a “he-​​cession” on both sides of the bor­der.

Photo by rocknroll_​guitar (flickr)