When a small town loses its biggest employer, the blow lands hard. Picture a Manitoba community of about 13,000 people whose economy has turned for decades on a single steel-fabrication plant. This summer the owners of that plant, Ironwood Steel Works in the town of Brandell, brought in automated cutting lines and cut their workforce from 900 to 400. The 500 people losing their shifts were each offered three options: a transfer, an early pension, or a one-time payout. Around 110 agreed to transfer to the company's larger plant in another Manitoba city. Another 160, mostly senior hands who had built up enough years of service, are leaning toward the early pension. The rest were offered a payout worth roughly eight months' wages, though many find it hard to get excited about once they learn the government will take back close to 40 percent. The remainder have yet to decide. Anxious about the town's future, the local council has opened a job-support office.

Bridget Maloney is blunt about it. She and her husband had counted on another five solid years on the line, and, certain their jobs were safe, had been spending freely rather than putting money aside. Relocating is off the table, she says: housing near the company's other plant costs far more, so the family would only slide back into debt. "They call it three choices," she says, "but at this stage of life not one of them really works for us."