Labour Force Survey: Revisions, 1987 to 2024
Released: 2025-01-24
Following each census cycle, Labour Force Survey (LFS) data are revised to ensure alignment with the most recently available population estimates, geographic boundaries, occupation and industry classifications, and other methodological improvements. This standard revision process—which has little impact on key labour market indicators such as employment and the unemployment rate—ensures that the LFS continues to paint a complete and accurate picture of labour market conditions.
Revised LFS series for the period from 1987 to 2024 are now available. Future LFS releases—including the release of January 2025 data on February 7—will be aligned with these revised series.
Labour market trends remain consistent with previously published information
The revisions had minimal impact on labour market trends observed at the national level from 2021 to 2024. For example, recently published data for 2023 and 2024 show that employment had risen at a slower pace than the rapidly growing population, and that the unemployment rate had generally trended up. These trends are also observed in the revised data.
Chart 1
Month-to-month employment level change, seasonally adjusted
Chart 2
Employment rate, seasonally adjusted
Chart 3
Unemployment rate, seasonally adjusted
Employment was revised upward (on average by 0.5% over the 2021-to-2024 period). The total number of employed people was 20.9 million in December 2024, an upward revision of 179,000 or 0.9% compared with the initially published estimate.
Month-to-month changes in the employment and unemployment levels varied little between the revised and unrevised data at the national level from 2021 to 2024. This is because the impact of the rebasing was generally spread over the period.
For example, slow month-to-month employment growth in the summer of 2024 was observed in both the revised and unrevised series, while the monthly increase from November to December 2024 was virtually identical in the revised and unrevised series (+91,000; +0.4%) (Chart 1). In December, employment growth on a year-over-year basis was 1.9% (compared with the unrevised 2.0%).
Trends in the employment rate were similar between the revised and unrevised series and were consistent with employment growing at a slower pace than the population in 2023 and 2024 (Chart 2). The revised employment rate fell from 62.5% (unrevised: 62.4%) in January 2023 to 60.8% (unrevised: 60.6%) in October 2024. In December 2024, the revised employment rate stood at 61.0% (compared with 60.8%, as initially published).
The national unemployment rate was virtually unchanged, never varying by more than 0.1 percentage points between the revised and unrevised series from 2021 to 2024 (Chart 3). The unemployment rate rose from a record-low of 4.8% (unchanged from initially published) in July 2022 to 6.9% (revised up 0.1 percentage points) in November 2024, before falling to 6.7% (unchanged) in December 2024. The youth unemployment rate had increased notably over this period, a trend that was similar in both the revised and unrevised data. The youth unemployment rate in December 2024 was revised to 14.2% (initially published as 14.4%).
For more detailed information about the LFS revision and comparisons of trends by age, gender and other characteristics, see the article The 2025 Revisions of the Labour Force Survey (LFS).
Updates to geographical and other classification standards
As geographic boundaries evolve over time, LFS data for subprovincial areas were revised to reflect the most recent Standard Geographical Classification (SGC) 2021. These revisions were applied back to 2011 to ensure a consistent time series. Changes to the geographical classification mostly affect census metropolitan areas (CMAs).
There are six former census agglomerations (CAs) that have become CMAs: Fredericton, New Brunswick; Drummondville, Quebec; Red Deer, Alberta; and Kamloops, Chilliwack, and Nanaimo, British Columbia. There were also changes to existing CMAs: Windsor CMA (incorporation of the Leamington CA); Ottawa–Gatineau CMA (incorporation of the Arnprior and Carleton Place CAs); and Halifax CMA (incorporation of the East Hants census subdivision).
There were minor updates to industry and occupation classifications to ensure consistency over time and comparability with other statistical programs. The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) was updated to 2022 V1.0. The National Occupational Classification (NOC) remains 2021 V1.0, but with this release some coding enhancements were applied retroactively to January 1998 to improve the consistency over time of LFS occupation data. Changes to these aspects of the survey are observed mainly at the detailed level and have minimal impact on published LFS series.
With this historical revision, data products from the LFS are disseminated by gender, instead of by sex, for all years. This revision has virtually no impact on current labour market trends as the distributions of these two variables are similar.
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Note to readers
More details on these revisions are available in the article "The 2025 Revisions of the Labour Force Survey (LFS)," as part of the Improvements to the Labour Force Survey (71F0031X) series.
With today's release, the following revised data tables are available:
14-10-0017; 14-10-0022; 14-10-0023; 14-10-0026; 14-10-0034; 14-10-0035; 14-10-0036; 14-10-0037; 14-10-0054; 14-10-0055; 14-10-0063; 14-10-0064; 14-10-0069; 14-10-0070; 14-10-0071; 14-10-0072; 14-10-0086; 14-10-0087; 14-10-0132; 14-10-0287; 14-10-0288; 14-10-0289; 14-10-0291; 14-10-0292; 14-10-0310; 14-10-0327; 14-10-0342; 14-10-0355; 14-10-0373; 14-10-0374; 14-10-0376; 14-10-0377; 14-10-0401; 14-10-0416; 14-10-0417; 14-10-0418; 14-10-0438; 14-10-0440; 14-10-0445; 14-10-0446; 14-10-0458; 14-10-0459; 14-10-0460; 14-10-0461; 14-10-0462; 14-10-0463; 14-10-0464; 14-10-0465; 14-10-0466; 14-10-0467; 14-10-0468; 14-10-0469; 14-10-0470; 14-10-0471 and 14-10-0472.
New data tables have been created for all subprovincial areas based on the 2021 Standard Geographical Classification boundaries, and the data series are available for 2011 onward.
The remaining tables will be released on the website according to the following schedule:
January 27, 2025
Data tables:
14-10-0019; 14-10-0020; 14-10-0021; 14-10-0027; 14-10-0028; 14-10-0029; 14-10-0030; 14-10-0031; 14-10-0032; 14-10-0033; 14-10-0042; 14-10-0043; 14-10-0050; 14-10-0051; 14-10-0057; 14-10-0058; 14-10-0059; 14-10-0060; 14-10-0065; 14-10-0066; 14-10-0067; 14-10-0068; 14-10-0075; 14-10-0076; 14-10-0077; 14-10-0078; 14-10-0081; 14-10-0117; 14-10-0118; 14-10-0121; 14-10-0122; 14-10-0125; 14-10-0126; 14-10-0129; 14-10-0130; 14-10-0133; 14-10-0134; 14-10-0286; 14-10-0320; 14-10-0359; 14-10-0375; 14-10-0408; 14-10-0409; 14-10-0411; 14-10-0412; 14-10-0415; 14-10-0421; 14-10-0422; 14-10-0423; 14-10-0425; 14-10-0426 and 14-10-0427.
January 28, 2025
Data tables:
14-10-0044; 14-10-0045; 14-10-0048; 14-10-0049; 14-10-0109; 14-10-0110; 14-10-0123; 14-10-0124; 14-10-0127; 14-10-0128; 14-10-0191; 14-10-0193; 14-10-0194; 14-10-0195; 14-10-0196; 14-10-0197; 14-10-0198; 14-10-0199; 14-10-0200; 14-10-0396; 14-10-0397; 14-10-0410; 14-10-0413; 14-10-0424; 14-10-0428 and 14-10-0437.
Next release
The next release of the Labour Force Survey will be on February 7, 2025.
Products
The article "The 2025 Revisions of the Labour Force Survey (LFS)," which is part of Improvements to the Labour Force Survey (71F0031X), is now available.
Contact information
For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact us (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; infostats@statcan.gc.ca) or Media Relations (statcan.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.statcan@statcan.gc.ca).
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