The Canadian Press

The number of Canadian individuals and businesses who filed for bankruptcy fell for the second straight month in November, but remained higher than they were in the same month of 2008.

The total number of bankruptcies declined 4% to 8,878 in November compared to 9,245 in October, according to figures released Thursday by the federal Superintendent of Bankruptcy.

Part of the drop was attributed to fewer consumer bankruptcies, which declined 3.8% to 8,482 in November from 8.816 in October. Business filings dropped 7.7% to 396, from 429 in October.

There was a much bigger decline between October and September, which historically sees a heavy volume of bankruptcies. The volume last September may have also been boosted by a change in fees.

November tends to have a relatively light volume of bankruptcies, showing month-to-month declines in all but three years in the past decade.

Compared to November 2008, consumer and individual bankruptcies were still up 2.4% from 8,669 a year earlier because of an increase in bankruptcies by individuals.

The number of individual bankruptcies in November was up 3.9% from 8,163 in November 2008 while the number of business bankruptcies fell 7.7% from 506 in November 2008.

The recession’s impact could be more clearly seen in the number of bankruptcies over a 12-month period, which rose 29.6% to 121,988 in November from 94,134 in the period ended November 2008.

As with the monthly figures, was a dramatic increase in the number of individual bankruptcies, which increased 32.4% to 116,458 for the 12 months ended November 2009 from 87,981 in the comparable year-earlier period.

Business bankruptcies over the 12 months ending in November were down 10.1%, falling to 5,530 last year from 6,153 in 2008.