OTTAWA, Jan 9 - Canada's unemployment rate in December fell to 7.4 percent from 7.5 percent in November as the economy added tens of thousands of new jobs for the fourth month in a row, Statistics Canada said on Friday. Analysts polled by had forecast the jobless rate would stay unchanged. Statistics Canada said 53,100 jobs had been created in December -- most of them full-time -- which was well above market expectations of 20,000 new positions. "Job gains over the past four months total 219,000, four times the increase of 52,000 observed during the first eight months of the year," Statscan said in its daily bulletin. But manufacturing jobs fell by 4,100 in December and by a total of 57,300 in 2003, due largely to a drop in the production of computers, electronics products and electrical equipment in the powerful provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Statscan said the slowdown in the manufacturing sector meant overall 2003 employment had grown by just 1.7 percent over 2002, compared to a 3.7 percent rise in 2002 over 2001.||