OTTAWA - Canada suffered its worst monthly job loss in at least three decades in January as 129,000 more workers across the country became victims of the economic slump.

The country has never seen a monthly job drop like this since Statistics Canada began compiling the data this way in the 1970s, not even during the recessions of the early 1980s and 1990s.

The job losses were felt in every region of the country and impacted almost all industries, as the unemployment rate soared to 7.2 per cent, from 6.6 per cent in December.

Liberal finance critic John McCallum led off Question Period by attacking the Conservatives on the economy, saying the "not only did they not see this coming, but they have no idea where they are going."

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty was not in the House, but his parliamentary secretary Ted Menzies implored the opposition parties to help speed the passage of the budget, which contains about $19 billion in stimulus spending and tax cuts for this year.

But the NDP said the package was not enough and called on the Harper government to put more money into the pot to stimulate the economy quickly.

On Thursday, Flaherty, who had described expected job losses as "regrettable," said he was open to "the possibility of doing more," but added the first step should be to pass the budget.

In truth, no one had seen the staggering job losses coming. They were far worst than the most bleak projection and three times the consensus forecast.

The data left economists searching for superlatives, resorting to adjectives such as "dismal," "bleak," and "horrendous."

"There is no sugar-coating this," said Scotia Capital economist Derek Holt.

"Normally when you get that kind of surprise you immediately look beneath the print for some encouraging details, but there weren't any," Holt said. "This was an all-around bad report."

Almost all the lost jobs were full-time in the private sector, mostly in battered manufacturing industries most affected by the severe downturn in the United States.

As well, the labour force shrank by 29,000, meaning thousands of discouraged people had stopped looking for work. And there were 14,000 more identifying themselves as self-employed.

Even the public sector did not emerge unscathed, losing 42,000 jobs in January.

TD Bank economist Derek Burleton, who earlier this week presented the gloomiest forecast to date in predicting 325,000 job losses during 2009, said he was shocked that the country is already one-third of the way there after one month.

But he was not revising his forecast, saying there is a glimmer of hope that laid-off auto workers could return to work later in the year if car sales pick up.

Still, the January surprise brought to 213,000 the number of jobs the economy has shed in the past three months.

And it was far worse, in relation to the population, than the 598,000 jobs retreat reported by the U.S. on Friday.

The carnage was everywhere. Ontario shed 71,000 jobs, half in the manufacturing sector. British Columbia and Quebec were also hit hard with losses of 35,000 and 26,000 respectively.

Even high paying executives are suffering, said James Geraghty of Happen, a Toronto-based placement agency. He said experienced mid-level executives earning over $100,000 are coming into his offices at about 25 a week.

"We've seen a big increase in January, it's almost tripled," he said.

Statistics Canada said the data set a number of dubious records.

It was the largest employment decrease since the agency began keeping comparable figures in 1976.

The manufacturing loss was the worst single-month contraction on record.

And the 0.6-point jump in the unemployment rate was the steepest one-month increase since 1992.

If there was any light shining through the black clouds it was in the fact that Canadians who still had jobs were earning 4.8 per cent more than a year ago.

Employment in health care and social assistance increased by 31,000.

But almost all other sectors reported job losses, including transportation, construction, furniture, electronics, electrical equipment, appliances and clothing.

January unemployment by cities:

--St. John's, N.L. 7.1 (7.2)

--Halifax 5.6 (5.3)

--Saint John, N.B. 6.6 (6.6)

--Saguenay, Que. 8.5 (7.7)

--Quebec 3.8 (3.9)

--Trois-Rivieres, Que. 7.1 (6.5)

--Sherbrooke, Que. 6.7 (6.7)

--Montreal 7.8 (7.5)

--Gatineau, Que. 5.2 (4.4)

--Ottawa 4.5 (4.6)

--Kingston, Ont. 4.9 (4.4)

--Toronto 7.8 (7.3)

--Hamilton 8.0 (7.0)

--Kitchener, Ont. 8.4 (7.9)

--London, Ont. 7.8 (7.3)

--Oshawa, Ont. 8.0 (7.8)

--St. Catharines-Niagara, Ont. 8.8 (8.8)

--Sudbury, Ont. 5.8 (5.6)

--Thunder Bay, Ont. 6.9 (6.6)

--Windsor, Ont. 10.9 (10.1)

--Winnipeg 4.5 (4.5)

--Regina 3.2 (3.6)

--Saskatoon 4.2 (4.0)

--Calgary 4.1 (3.9)

--Edmonton 3.8 (3.6)

--Abbotsford, B.C. 5.8 (5.5)

--Vancouver 5.1 (4.8)

--Victoria 4.0 (3.7)