Analysis

Description: Canada's workforce is among the most educated in the world. But when it comes to worker productivity, we've seen a real slump over the past few years. The quarterly data published by StatCan in June 2024 confirms Canadian workers are continuing to underperform compared to our neighbours to the south. This comes as no surprise to this episode's guest, Guy Gellatly, Chief Economic Advisor at StatCan. The latest quarterly numbers are a continuation of an ongoing decline in Canada's productivity that economists have been tracking for years. 

But what factors influence worker productivity? And why does it matter if Canadians are less productive? As a matter of face, what even is productivity? In this episode, we asked Guy to help us understand how we got to this point and why it matters for Canadians.

Description: This analytical report presents selected findings from the 2022 Indigenous Peoples Survey (formerly called the Aboriginal Peoples Survey). The 2022 IPS represents the sixth cycle of the survey and focuses on Indigenous children and their families. This report covers First Nations children living off reserve, Métis children and Inuit children aged 1 to 14, and includes topics such as sociodemographic characteristics, food security and basic needs, Indigenous languages and culture, child care and a number of health indicators. Disaggregated data by gender, age groups, and geography (provinces and territories, inside and ouside Inuit Nunangat, urban and rural) are presented when possible. The report also includes comparisons to the 2006 Aboriginal Children's Survey, the 2006 Aboriginal Peoples Survey, and the 2019 Canadian Health Survey of Children and Youth.

Description: The ‘Eh Sayers’ podcast explores data of interest to Canadians, like social or news-worthy topics. It also aims to foster data literacy and deliver insight into the lives of Canadians by exploring the data the agency produces and tying it to real life situations through storytelling.

Description: The Indigenous Peoples Survey (IPS) is a national survey on the social and economic conditions of First Nations people living off reserve, Métis and Inuit. The objectives of the IPS are to identify the needs of these Indigenous groups and to inform policy and programming activities aimed at improving the well-being of Indigenous peoples. The IPS aims to provide current and relevant data for a variety of stakeholders, including Indigenous organizations, communities, service providers, researchers, governments and the general public.

The 2017 APS represents the fifth cycle of the survey and focuses on participation in the Canadian economy, transferable skills, practical training, use of information technology and Indigenous language attainment of First Nations people living off reserve, Métis and Inuit aged 15 years and over.

The 2022 IPS represents the sixth cycle of the survey and focuses on families and children including child care, access to services, family stability, intergenerational trauma and discrimination, sense of belonging, and Indigenous languages and culture, of First Nations people living off reserve, Métis and Inuit aged 1 year and over.

Description: Release published in The Daily – Statistics Canada’s official release bulletin

Description: Release published in The Daily – Statistics Canada’s official release bulletin

Description: Release published in The Daily – Statistics Canada’s official release bulletin

Description: This report explores the statistical and analytical potential of information on the language-related characteristics of occupations provided by the Occupational and Skills Information System (OaSIS). OaSIS is an information system developed by Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) which provides detailed information on occupations. The report identifies and explores a series of descriptors of occupations related to skills, work activities and work contexts that have a language- or communication-related aspect. These descriptors of occupations are used to enrich data from the 2021 Census.

Description: This thematic series groups different statistical products related to ethnicity, languages, and immigration. It features analytical documents of varying scopes, such as population profiles, reference materials, data products (including tables and factsheets), among other document types.

Description: This study uses various demographic scenarios to examine the effects of different immigration levels and labour force participation rates on the size and composition of the Canadian labour force to 2041. These scenarios take into account the targets of the 2024–2026 Immigration Levels Plan, published in November 2023 by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, as well as recent demographic developments, such as those related to the COVID-19 pandemic and the increase in the number of permanent and temporary immigrants admitted to Canada in 2022 and 2023.

Description: This infographic details the prevalence of vitamin D inadequacy among the Canadian population aged 3 to 79 by focusing on risk factors as well as behaviours that can reduce the likelihood of low vitamin D.

Description: Release published in The Daily – Statistics Canada’s official release bulletin

Description: This article provides insights into the rates of COVID-19 mortality among First Nations peoples and Métis living in private dwellings and the social determinants of COVID-19 mortality among these populations using data from the 2016 Canadian Census Health and Environment Cohorts linked to the Canadian Vital Statistics – Death Database from 2016 to 2021.

Description: Release published in The Daily – Statistics Canada’s official release bulletin

Description: Release published in The Daily – Statistics Canada’s official release bulletin

Description: This short video explains how it can be very effective for all levels of governments and organizations that serve communities to use disaggregated data to make evidence-informed public policy decisions. By using disaggregated data, policymakers are able to design more appropriate and effective policies that meet the needs of each diverse and unique Canadian.

Description: This short video explains how the use of disaggregated data can help policymakers to develop more targeted and effective policies by identifying the unique needs and challenges faced by different demographic groups.

Description: A series of articles on various subjects which explore the impact of COVID-19 on the socio-economic landscape. New articles will be released periodically.

Description: Release published in The Daily – Statistics Canada’s official release bulletin

Description: This video is part of a series that is designed to give you a basic understanding of the Census of Population web pages. This video will provide an overview of the major links and products on the main page that are available to all users.

Description:

Unit and item nonresponse almost always occur in surveys and censuses. The larger its size the larger its potential effect will be on survey estimates. It is, therefore, important to cope with it at every stage where they can be affected. At varying degrees the size of nonresponse can be coped with at design, field and processing stages. The nonresponse problems have an impact on estimation formulas for various statistics as a result of imputations and weight adjustments along with survey weights in the estimates of means, totals, or other statistics. The formulas may be decomposed into components that include response errors, the effect of weight adjustment for unit nonresponse, and the effect of substitution for nonresponse. The impacts of the design, field, and processing stages on the components of the estimates are examined.

Description:

Conventional methods of inference in survey sampling are critically examined. The need for conditioning the inference on recognizable subsets of the population is emphasized. A number of real examples involving random sample sizes are presented to illustrate inferences conditional on the realized sample configuration and associated difficulties. The examples include the following: estimation of (a) population mean under simple random sampling; (b) population mean in the presence of outliers; (c) domain total and domain mean; (d) population mean with two-way stratification; (e) population mean in the presence of non-responses; (f) population mean under general designs. The conditional bias and the conditional variance of estimators of a population mean (or a domain mean or total), and the associated confidence intervals, are examined.

Description:

The cost-variance optimization of the design of the Canadian Labour Force Survey was carried out in two steps. First, the sample designs were optimized for each of the two major area types, the Self-Representing (SR) and the Non-Self-Representing (NSR) areas. Cost models were developed and parameters estimated from a detailed field study and by simulation, while variances were estimated using data from the Census of Population. The scope of the optimization included the allocation of sample to the two stages in the SR design, and the consideration of two alternatives to the old design in NSR areas. The second stage of optimization was the allocation of sample to SR and NSR areas.

Description:

This study is mainly concerned with an evaluation of the forecasting performance of a set of the most often applied ARIMA models. These models were fitted to a sample of two hundred seasonal time series chosen from eleven sectors of the Canadian economy. The performance of the models was judged according to eight variable criteria, namely: average forecast error for the last three years, the chi-square statistic for the randomness of the residuals, the presence of small parameters, overdifferencing, underdifferencing, correlation between the parameters, stationarity and invertibility. Overall and conditional rankings of the models are obtained and graphs are presented.

Description:

The synthetic estimator (SYN) has been traditionally used to estimate characteristics of small domains. Although it has the advantage of a small variance, it can be seriously biased in some small domains which depart in structure from the overall domains. Särndal (1981) introduced the regression estimator (REG) in the context of domain estimation. This estimator is nearly unbiased, however, it has two drawbacks; (i) its variance can be considerable in some small domains and (ii) it can take on negative values in situations that do not allow such values.

In this paper, we report on a compromise estimator which strikes a balance between the two estimators SYN and REG. This estimator, called the modified regression estimator (MRE), has the advantage of a considerably reduced variance compared to the REG estimator and has a smaller Mean Squared Error than the SYN estimator in domains where the latter is badly biased. The MRE estimator eliminates the drawback with negative values mentioned above. These results are supported by a Monte Carlo study involving 500 samples.

Description:

This paper presents an overview of the methodology used in the processing of the 1981 Census of Agriculture data. The edit and imputation techniques are stressed, with emphasis on the multivariate search algorithm. A brief evaluation of the system’s performance is given.

Description:

Following each decennial population census, the Canadian Labour Force Survey (CLFS) has undergone a sample redesign to reflect changes in population characteristics and to respond to changes in information needs. The current redesign program which culminated with introduction of a new sample at the beginning of 1985 included extensive research into improved sample design, data collection and estimation methodologies, highlights of which are described.

Description:

Goodness of fit tests, tests for independence in a two-way contingency table, log-linear models and logistic regression models are investigated in the context of samples which are obtained from complex survey designs. Suggested approximations to the null distributions are reviewed and some examples from the Canada Health Survey and Canadian Labour Force Survey are given. Software implementation for using these methods is briefly discussed.

Description:

This paper presents a moving average which estimates the trend-cycle while eliminating seasonality from semi-annual series (observed twice yearly). The proposed average retains the power of all cycles which last three years or more; 90% of those of two years; and 55% of cycles of one year and a half. By comparison, the two by two moving average retains the power of respectively 75%, 50% and 25% of the same cycles.

Description:

This paper discusses the use of matching between files of comparable data in the evaluation of non-sampling error. As an example of the technique, the data quality evaluation of the 1981 Canadian Census of Agriculture is described and some results presented.

Description: The journal publishes articles dealing with various aspects of statistical development relevant to a statistical agency, such as design issues in the context of practical constraints, use of different data sources and collection techniques, total survey error, survey evaluation, research in survey methodology, time series analysis, seasonal adjustment, demographic studies, data integration, estimation and data analysis methods, and general survey systems development. The emphasis is placed on the development and evaluation of specific methodologies as applied to data collection or the data themselves.

Description: This report presents the results of the population projections by age group and sex for Canada, the provinces and territories. These projections are based on assumptions that take into account the most recent trends relating to components of population growth, particularly fertility, mortality, immigration, emigration and interprovincial migration.

The detailed data tables are available in CODR: tables 1710005701 and 1710005801.

Description: Labour Statistics at a Glance features short analytical articles on specific topics of interest related to Canada's labour market. The studies examine recent or historical trends using data produced by the Centre for Labour Market Information, i.e., the Labour Force Survey, the Survey of Employment Payrolls and Hours, the Job Vacancy and Wage Survey, the Employment Insurance Coverage Survey and the Employment Insurance Statistics Program.

Description: The Health Research Working Paper Series publishes: analytical work-in-progress; background documentation for specific research projects (e.g methodological papers); lengthy reports intended for specific clients, and; compendiums of data tables. Publication in this series does not preclude publication of specific aspects of the work in a peer-reviewed journal.

Description: Environment fact sheets will include short, focused, single-theme analysis on key issues within the changing environment with regards to all Canadians. Over the course of the series, analysis will include topics on: air and climate, pollution and waste, environmental protection and quality, and natural resources.

Description: This publication presents key highlights and results from the General Social Survey on the topics of caregiving and care receiving; social identity; giving, volunteering and participating; victimization; time use; and family.

Description: Statistics Canada produces videos that present key communications messages to multiple publics in an easy-to-understand way. As a communications tool, they make complex information and ideas easy to interpret by telling a visual story. Statistics Canada has videos on a variety of topics.

Description: This publication presents annual estimates of population for subprovincial areas of Canada, such as census metropolitan areas (CMAs), census agglomerations (CAs), economic regions (ERs) and census divisions (CDs). The following components of population change are also presented: births, deaths, immigration, emigration, returning emigration, net temporary emigration, net non-permanent residents and interprovincial and intraprovincial migration. The estimates are based on the most recent census of population results available at the time of publication, which have been adjusted for census net undercoverage (including adjustment for incompletely enumerated Indian reserves). This publication also contains highlights and an analysis of the most recent demographic trends, as well as a description of the concepts, methods and data quality of the estimates.

Description: Reports on Special Business Projects is an occasional series that focuses primarily on the results of special surveys or special projects conducted by the Centre for Special Business Projects. The reports cover a wide range of topics, which include business performance and trends, custom tabulations of business data, economic impact studies, new measurement frameworks and indicators to support program development, monitoring and performance assessment, territorial economic indicators and other special studies.

Description: Short and focused data tables related to current events.