Nearly six million Canadians lost their job or found themselves working less than half of their normal hours. Inflation fell sharply, dropping into negative territory. It wasn’t clear at that point how long this extraordinary situation would last or whether it might get even worse. Financial markets froze. There was talk of another Great Depression.
There are many factories with extremely high production efficiency, as suggested by the value of manufactured goods shipments per establishment and per worker both being number one in Kyushu and number three in the nation. Since this region has a high share of manufacturers, it was significantly affected by the decline in exports and production caused by the failure of Lehman Brothers.