The Canadian economy posted its worst showing on record in 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the country closing down businesses and putting people out of work.

Statistics Canada says real gross domestic product (GDP) shrank 5.4 percent in 2020, the steepest annual decline since comparable data was first recorded in 1961.

The economic decline for the year was due to the shutdown of large swaths of the economy in March and April during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic that crushed the economy. Since then, economic activity has slowly and steadily grown.

Statistics Canada says the economy grew at an annualized rate of 9.6 percent in the fourth quarter of last year, down from an annualized growth rate of 40.6 percent in the third quarter. That was higher than expected, with the average economist estimate at 7.5 percent, according to financial data firm Refinitiv.

However, despite the better-than-expected result for the quarter as a whole, December eked out a 0.1 percent increase, which followed a 0.8 percent increase in November.

BMO chief economist Douglas Porter said the economy soldiered through second-wave restrictions better than anticipated and may signal a better-than-anticipated quarter, and potentially year overall.

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