The survey's findings were based on data gathered during the reference week of March 15 to March 21 — right as authorities were starting to close things down and urging the public to restrict nonessential movements.

Canada, like so many countries around the world, has effectively boarded up huge parts of its economy to limit the spread of the coronavirus.

Other numbers in Thursday's Labour Force Survey showed total hours worked dropped by 15 percent across all industries, the report said.

The services sectors were by far the hardest hit, losing 963,500 jobs, with much of the decline in accommodation and food services — which suffered a 23.9 percent plunge — and retail and wholesale trade. The goods-producing sectors shed 47,200 position, mostly in manufacturing.

Young people aged 15 to 24 years old saw the biggest decrease in employment of any category by shedding 392,000 jobs.

Women aged 25 to 54 years old, in the core-working group, saw an employment decline more than twice the size as men in the same category.

The private sector lost 830,200 positions while the public sector saw a decrease of 144,600 jobs.

The deterioration of the job market marked a swift turnaround for Canadian employment, which in recent years has been one of the strongest pillars of the economy.

For example, the jobless rate had hovered between 5.4 percent and 5.9 percent, near a 44-year low, from March 2019 and until February 2020.

Heading into Thursday's release, a consensus of economists had predicted the March job losses to reach around 500,000 and for the unemployment rate to surge to 7.5 percent.

"We all knew it was going to be bad, but it is still hard to process the numbers we received today," TD senior economist Brian DePratto wrote in a research note to clients.

"Indeed, this single report wiped out 40 months of net employment gains, and the worst is yet to come ... we're not yet looking at the full COVID-19 impact."

Between March 15 and end-of-day Tuesday, the number of claims soared for Canada’s employment insurance program and the federal government's new emergency workers benefit programs. Combined, the programs attracted 4.26 million claims, which is more than 11 percent of Canada’s entire population.

The Statistics Canada release arrived a day after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau provided a preview for Canadians of the March job report as he warned "it’s going to be a hard day for the country."

The Trudeau government has introduced a large fiscal response to support workers and to help companies avoid layoffs.

Yves Giroux, Canada's parliamentary budget officer, released a new report Thursday that projected the economic aid package would inflate the 2020-21 federal deficit to C$184.2 billion — or 8.5 percent of the gross domestic product. The shortfall hasn't been 8.5 percent of GDP since 1984-85, it noted.

