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This paper starts from the definition that "structural unemployment occurs when workers are unable to fill available jobs because they lack the skills, do not live where jobs are available, or are unwilling to work at the wage rate offered in the market." This implies that the number of vacancies in the Canadian labour market is an upper bound to the extent of "structural unemployment". The paper summarizes available estimates of the vacancy rate in Canada. In the high technology sector, vacancies may be equivalent to 2.2% of the labour force but evidence from more representative surveys indicates a range of 0.43% to 0.75% for the economy as a whole. Although during the 1980s the outward shift in the relationship between the Help-Wanted Index and the unemployment rate raised concerns that structural unemployment was an increasing problem in Canada, that shift has been reversed in the 1990s.

North American transportation in figures provides a comprehensive set of comparable statistical indicators of the use, performance and impact of transportation in North America. It includes over 90 different data tables, supported by figures, maps and extensive technical documentation describing data categories and definitions relating to each country, that is, Canada, Mexico and the United States. The report covers a wide variety of transportation subjects across the three countries: including transportation and the economy; safety; merchandise trade; freight activity; passenger travel; infrastructure; and transportation energy and environment.

The Guide to health statistics leads to health-related information with links to vital statistics such as births, deaths, marriages and divorces, to cancer statistics, health determinants, health status, health care, smoking and tobacco use and more. There is also information on cross-sectional and longitudinal surveys from the Canadian Community Health Survey and the National Population Health Survey.

This user's guide has been developed by Health Statistics Division to facilitate access on health information at Statistics Canada. It includes information with links to products and programs from Health Statistics Division, other divisions at Statistics Canada and other health related programs outside Statistics Canada.

The first survey of innovation, advanced technologies and practices in the Canadian construction sector was recently conducted. Of the five types of technologies listed in the survey, communications technologies have the highest percentage of use (46% of businesses). Of all the techonolgies, three computer-related technologies had the highest percentage of use : e-mail (38%), company computer networks (25%) and computer aided design (23%). The three advanced practices with the largest percentage of business using them, each with one third of businesses, are: design-build contracts, computerized inventory control and computerized estimating software.

The growing trend towards a knowledge-based economy has impacted the way research is funded and performed in Canadian universities. As higher quality estimates of R&D activities by this sector are of increasing importance to policy makers, Statistics Canada has begun substantial revisions to the methods for calculating estimates for higher education R&D. The implementation of this plan will provide substantially improved estimates of both dollar values and personnel counts for this sector.

Although universities and federal government departments have unique mandates, both are striving to promote applied research. Recent surveys finally provide a basis for comparison. In 1999, universities reported over 1,800 active patents with royalties approaching $19 million. Federal governments departments had almost 2,000 patents generating $12 million in royalties.

Why do innovation surveys produce radically different estimates of the number of R&D performers than R&D surveys? The factors contributing to divergence are presented with detail on selected contributors.

Given the high cost of R&D, adopting the correct strategies and mix of products is required for success for Canadian biotechnology firms. A recent survey examined the rapid growth of 30 companies. Fast-growing enterprises adopted a strategy of patenting their products, avoiding major production delays, targeting export markets, accessing venture capital, conducting key alliances, and planning the IPO.

Technological change and innovations depend greatly on R&D activities and investments. R&D is concentrated around the "core firms" that are responsible for 87% of expenditures. Biotechnology R&D performers accounted for $904 million of R&D expenditure. Biotechnology R&D is concentrated in large firms with 75% of R&D occuring in firms with 100 or more employees. Almost 77% of funding sources for R&D in biotechnology came from the private sector and 21% from foreign sources.

In the private sector, 10.1% of enterprises use the Internet to sell goods and services. The information and cultural industries utilize this growing form of commerce the greatest (20.1%). In comparison, 14.5% of public sector institutions sell goods or services with educational services leading the way, followed by federal and provincial governments.

The third edition of Canadian culture in perspective: a statistical overview, provides a comprehensive statistical portrait of the health and vitality of cultural activities and industries in Canada. This compendium incorporates data from all surveys in Statistics Canada's Culture Statistics Program, as well as data from other internal and external sources, enabling readers to track various themes and trends over time.

This edition contains sections on: the economic impact of the culture sector, culture activities by tourists and the international trade position of the culture sector; on social dimensions of culture, including characteristics of the cultural labour force, philanthropic behaviour, and the consumers of cultural goods and services; and on various sectors such as heritage, the performing arts and festivals, visual arts and libraries. It also explores ownership and content issues in the culture industries (publishing, film, broadcasting and music).

Canada's ports handled a record 382.0 million tonnes (Mt.) of cargo in 1999 and a record of 2.2 million TEURS (twenty-foot-equivalent units) of containers.

Third quarter 1999 operating ratios for top carriers improved by one point over the same period one year earlier to 0.93 but were unchanged in the fourth quarter (0.94). Average revenue per carrier grew by 3% in the third quarter and 4% in the fourth quarter.

Retirement issues have risen to the forefront of socio-economic debate in Canada through the nineties and will likely gain importance as we enter the new millennium. Employer pension plans are one of the primary programs in place to provide workers with income after retirement.

Pension plans in Canada: statistical highlights and key tables presents information on the terms, conditions and membership on all employers sponsored pension plans in Canada. This supplement to publication Pension plans in Canada (74-401-XIB) provides analysis and data on registered pension plans. The topics covered include province of employment, labour force/paid workers coverage, type of plan (defined benefit and defined contributions), size of plan, public and private sectors, contributory and non-contributory plans, employee and employer contributions.

This publication presents current and constant price estimates of provincial gross domestic product (GDP) for over 50 industries covering the entire Canadian economy, including aggregates and special industry groupings. The document also includes a comprehensive analytical review of the economy of each province and territory with summary text, tables and charts.

The Vancouver-San Francisco market experienced the largest year-over-year increase in passengers of all the major markets between 1997 and 1998. Toronto-Milwaukee was the mid-sized market which experienced the largest year-over-year increase, with 25,520 more passengers in 1998 than 1997.

The volume of air travel between the Canadian cities and American states presented in Text Table 2.1 generally reflects the underlying large inter-city markets.

The Canada-United States Open Skies Agreement, which was signed on February 24 1995, transformed the regulatory environment for air services between two countries. Text Table 3.1 shows the changes in the level of travel between the U.S. and the eight most-frequented Canadian cities since 1995.

Scheduled air trips to or from Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta represented a greater proportion of total Canada-United States air travel than residents of these provinces represented of the total Canadian population. Alberta residents represented 9.6% of Canada's total population in 1998, while Alberta represented 11.8% of the total number of Canada-U.S. air travellers. Even more markedly, the populations of Ontario and British Columbia represented 37.7% and 13.2% respectively of the total Canadian population, while Ontario represented 44.4% of total Canada-U.S. travelers and British Columbia represented 20.8%.

North American transportation in figures provides a comprehensive set of comparable statistical indicators of the use, performance and impact of transportation in North America. It includes over 90 different data tables, supported by figures, maps and extensive technical documentation describing data categories and definitions relating to each country, that is, Canada, Mexico and the United States. The report covers a wide variety of transportation subjects across the three countries: including transportation and the economy; safety; merchandise trade; freight activity; passenger travel; infrastructure; and transportation energy and environment.

Samples from hidden and hard-to-access human populations are often obtained by procedures in which social links are followed from one respondent to another. Inference from the sample to the larger population of interest can be affected by the link-tracing design and the type of data it produces. The population with its social network structure can be modeled as a stochastic graph with a joint distribution of node values representing characteristics of individuals and arc indicators representing social relationships between individuals.

To better understand the impact of imposing a restricted region on calibration weights, the author reviews the latter's aymptotic behaviour. Necessary and sufficient conditions are provided for the existence of a solution to the calibration equation with weights within given intervals.

For surveys which involve more than one stage of data collection, one method recommended for adjusting weights for nonresponse (after the first stage of data collection) entails utilizing auxiliary variables (from previous stages of data collection) which are identified as predictors of nonresponse.

Survey statisticians frequently use superpopulation linear regression models. The Gauss-Markov theorem, assuming fixed regressors or conditioning on observed values of regressors, asserts that the standard estimators of regression coefficients are best linear unbiased.

This report examines the factors contributing to the rapid growth of a small number of biotechnology firms in Canada.

This is the second release of preliminary data in advance of the annual publication, scheduled for completion in October of this year. It covers facilities-based carriers (wireline, wireless and satellite) as well as resellers.

This Juristat from the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics analyzes recent trends in the sentencing of young offenders, those aged 12 to 17, who have been convicted of a federal offence. The analysis is based on data released earlier in May of this year.

It provides information on the characteristics of young offenders sentenced in court, the nature of dispositions, trends in sentencing, and comparisons of young offenders on the basis of age, sex, nature of charge, number of charges and prior convictions. In addition, this report compares the sentencing of adult and young offenders.

The purpose of this Juristat is to provide information on the administration of alternative measures in Canada, and its relative success in diverting individuals out of the court system. The report focuses on alternative measures for youth, but also includes a short section presenting data on adult alternative measures.

The incomes of culture workers have long been an issue of concern to culture organizations and lobby groups. Using the 1997 Census, we can look at the average earnings of some 500 different occupations including some selected culture occupations.

When productivity increases in a sector, does it mean employment growth? This article explores the question and introduces a new concept: multifactor productivity.

This guide presents information of interest to users of data from the Survey of Household Spending. Data are collected via personal interviews conducted in January, February and March after the reference year using a paper questionnaire. Information is gathered about the spending habits, dwelling characteristics and household equipment of Canadian households during the reference year. The survey covers private households in the ten provinces and three territories. (The three territories are surveyed every second year.)

This guide includes definitions of survey terms and variables and descriptions of survey methodology and data quality. There is also a section describing the various statistics that can be created using expenditure data (e.g., budget share, market share, and aggregates).

Starting with the 1997 survey year, the Family Expenditure Survey was replaced by the Survey of Household Spending (SHS). This note provides information to users and prospective users of data from the SHS about the differences between the SHS and the former Family Expenditure Survey. Topics covered include sample size, number of questions, coverage, and concepts.

Starting with the 1997 survey year, the Household Facilities and Equipment Survey was replaced by the Survey of Household Spending (SHS). This note provides information to users and prospective users of data from the SHS about the differences between the SHS and the former Household Facilities and Equipment Survey. Topics covered include sample size, weighting, collection method, reference period, and concepts.

This report provides an overview of an inventory of publicly available data on the nonprofit sector.

Direct measures of skill attainment such as the International Adult Literacy Survey are used to assess the importance of educational outcome skills such as literacy in determining labour market outcomes such as earnings. Policy makers also use them to direct resources most efficiently. However, these skill measures are the product of complex statistical procedures. This paper examines the mathematical robustness of the International Adult Literacy Survey measures against other possibilities in estimating the impact of literacy on individual earnings.

With the release of the first quarter 2000 of the National Income and Expenditure Accounts the sectoring of federal and provincial government, non-autonomous pension plans has changed. These pension plans are now part of the personal sector. Previously these plans were included in either the federal or provincial government sector accounts.

The Cancer Record is a newsletter for cancer registries in Canada. Its main purpose is to improve the quality and consistency of data submitted to the Canadian Cancer Registry. The goals of the newsletter are to establish and continue communication among cancer registry personnel, establish a mechanism for identifying and resolving coding or reporting inconsistencies in the national registry and update cancer registries regarding the continued development at the national level.

This paper deals with a problem in internationally comparable economic statistics, namely, the fact that countries measure value added by industry differently. The economic measure, value added, is important both in its own right and because it is a component of other economic measures such as productivity. Value added by industry measures the additional value created by a production process. This additional value, created by factors of production such as labour and capital, may be calculated either before or after deducting the consumption of fixed capital used in production. Thus, gross value added by industry is the value of its output of goods and services less the value of its intermediate consumption of goods and services and net value added as the value of output less the values of both intermediate consumption and consumption of fixed capital.

The intent of this document is to provide an inventory of the surveys, databases, publications, articles and work in progress in Statistics Canada that relate to Canada's retirement income programs. The inventory provides information on publications, output and relevant data elements produced by the surveys and databases. It does not provide an exhaustive description of these data sources, but instead focuses on the information that can be used for purposes of researching/analysing retirement income programs. Some of the information contained does not specifically relate to these programs but might be used as a secondary source when doing research in this area.

The focus of Symposium'99 is on techniques and methods for combining data from different sources and on analysis of the resulting data sets. In this talk we illustrate the usefulness of taking such an "integrating" approach when tackling a complex statistical problem. The problem itself is easily described - it is how to approximate, as closely as possible, a "perfect census", and in particular, how to obtain census counts that are "free" of underenumeration. Typically, underenumeration is estimated by carrying out a post enumeration survey (PES) following the census. In the UK in 1991 the PEF failed to identify the full size of the underenumeration and so demographic methods were used to estimate the extent of the undercount. The problems with the "traditional" PES approach in 1991 resulted in a joint research project between the Office for National Statistics and the Department of Social Statistics at the University of Southampton aimed at developing a methodology which will allow a "One Number Census" in the UK in 2001. That is, underenumeration will be accounted for not just at high levels of aggregation, but right down to the lowest levels at which census tabulations are produced. In this way all census outputs will be internally consistent, adding to the national population estimates. The basis of this methodology is the integration of information from a number of data sources in order to achieve this "One Number".