An integrated modeling approach to unemployment rate estimation for sub-provincial areas of Canada - ARCHIVED

The Canadian Labour Force Survey (LFS) produces monthly estimates of the unemployment rate at national and provincial levels. The LFS also releases unemployment estimates for sub-provincial areas such as Census Metropolitan Areas (CMAs) and Urban Centers (UCs). However, for some sub-provincial areas, the direct estimates are not reliable since the sample size in some areas is quite small. The small area estimation in LFS concerns estimation of unemployment rates for local sub-provincial areas such as CMA/UCs using small area models. In this paper, we will discuss various models including the Fay-Herriot model and cross-sectional and time series models. In particular, an integrated non-linear mixed effects model will be proposed under the hierarchical Bayes (HB) framework for the LFS unemployment rate estimation. Monthly Employment Insurance (EI) beneficiary data at the CMA/UC level are used as auxiliary covariates in the model. A HB approach with the Gibbs sampling method is used to obtain the estimates of posterior means and posterior variances of the CMA/UC level unemployment rates. The proposed HB model leads to reliable model-based estimates in terms of CV reduction. Model fit analysis and comparison of the model-based estimates with the direct estimates are presented in the paper.