A new report from The Conference Board of Canada suggests job seekers may be in for a tough time in the next few months.

The Ottawa-based economic research group said Friday its monthly help-wanted index survey suggests hiring prospects will be poor, falling in 17 of 26 metropolitan areas it surveys, including nine out of 10 in Ontario.

Also Friday, a forecast from Capital Economics predicted Canada’s economy will remain close to stall speed for the next two years, growing at just 1.5 per cent next year and one per cent in 2013.

The two reports came ahead of two major economic measures next week. On Monday, Statistics Canada will release the gross domestic product numbers for August.

Analysts expect the data will show the economy grew 0.2 per cent from July, which would suggest growth over the summer of 2.1 per cent annualized.

On Friday, StatsCan will put out the employment figures for October, with the consensus among economists being that the economy created 10,000 jobs, to maintain the present unemployment rate at 7.1 per cent.

While positive, those numbers would be weak enough to offer further evidence of a slow recovery.

The Bank of Canada downgraded its projections for Canadian growth earlier this week to 2.1 per cent this year and 1.9 per cent next and 2.9 in 2013.

Capital Economics economist David Madani said that was a good first step, but many forecasters underestimate just how long it will take to undo the damage of the just-passed recession.

With files from The Canadian Press