Economic and Social Reports
Updated methodology to estimate interjurisdictional employees

Interjurisdictional employees (IJEs) are individuals who work in other regions while maintaining their primary residence in their home province or territory. The concept of IJEs was previously termed “interprovincial employees,” and several studies have examined interprovincial paid employment in Canada (for example, Morissette and Qiu, 2015; Laporte and Lu, 2013; Laporte, Lu, and Schellenberg, 2013). Since 2021, the Social Analysis and Modelling Division at Statistics Canada has released annual IJE estimates using data from the Canadian Employer–Employee Dynamics Database via the Common Output Data Repository (CODR).^Note  This article describes an updated methodology to estimate IJEs and compares the previous and new methodologies using the IJE estimates from 2002 to 2020.^Note  The updated methodology ensures that the number of IJEs sent by a given province or territory to all other jurisdictions is the same as the number of IJEs received from that province or territory by all other jurisdictions.

The methods section below first defines IJEs and then compares both methodologies for IJE annual production. The numbers of IJEs from 2002 to 2020 produced by the previous and new methodologies are also provided in charts to show the impact of the revision.

Methods

Definition of interjurisdictional employees

IJEs are defined as paid employees who maintain a permanent residence in a given province or territory while reporting earnings from a different province or territory.^Note 

A given province or territory may provide workers to other jurisdictions (outgoing IJEs) and receive workers from other jurisdictions (incoming IJEs). Specifically,

• IJEs received by A from B are called IJEs incoming to A from B
• IJEs sent by B to A are called IJEs outgoing from B to A.

For example, IJEs incoming to Alberta from Ontario are individuals whose main job is in Alberta but who reported Ontario as the place of residence on their T1 tax returns in year t, minus out-migrants from Alberta to Ontario and in-migrants received by Alberta from Ontario.^Note  Because IJEs are used to measure employees who still maintain their primary residence in one province or territory while working in another jurisdiction, it is necessary to remove the counts of individuals who permanently move from one province or territory to another (in-migrants and out-migrants). To quantify the count of out-migrants and in-migrants, information on the place of residence in the previous year (t-1) and the following year (t+1) is needed in the estimation, as noted in Table 1.

In this example, as shown in Panel A of Table 1, out-migrants are defined as employees who permanently move from Alberta to Ontario (1) whose main job is in Alberta in year t but reside in Ontario at the end of year t, (2) who reside in Alberta in the previous year (t-1) and (3) who reside in Ontario in the following year (t+1). In-migrants are defined as employees who permanently move to Alberta from Ontario. As shown in Panel B of Table 1, they (1) have their main job in Alberta in year t but reside in Ontario at the end of year t, (2) reside in Ontario in the previous year (t-1) and (3) reside in Alberta in the following year (t+1).

Comparison of previous and new methodology

Conceptually, the number of IJEs sent by a given province or territory to other jurisdictions and the number of IJEs received from that province or territory by all other jurisdictions should be identical to one another. For example, if a given province or territory sends 10,000 IJEs to other jurisdictions in year t, the number of IJEs received from that province or territory by all other jurisdictions will equal 10,000.

A review of the previous methodology, however, showed that different estimates were produced when accounting for incoming and outgoing IJEs sent by a given province or territory to other jurisdictions and for the number of IJEs received from that province to territory by other jurisdictions. Updates are needed in two particular areas of the process to address the inconsistency of worker flows.

First, in the previous methodology, the number of IJEs sent by a given province or territory (outgoing IJEs) was based on the main job held by workers of that province or territory outside their home province. By contrast, the number of IJEs received from that province or territory by other jurisdictions (incoming IJEs) was based on any job held by workers of that province or territory outside the home province. As a result, a worker residing in Ontario and holding one job in Alberta and another job in Saskatchewan would be counted as one worker sent by Ontario to other jurisdictions but would be counted as two workers received from Ontario by other jurisdictions (i.e., one worker received by Alberta and one worker received by Saskatchewan). In the new methodology, only the concept of main job is used to define incoming and outgoing measures to maintain consistency.

Second, the previous methodology treated in-migrants and out-migrants asymmetrically when measuring worker flows between two jurisdictions. To ensure the counts of incoming and outgoing IJEs from the main job are the same between the two jurisdictions, two specific changes were implemented in the new methodology. First, when computing the number of IJEs received by jurisdiction A from jurisdiction B, jurisdiction A’s out-migrants include workers leaving A to B only. Similarly, when computing the number of IJEs sent by jurisdiction B to jurisdiction A, jurisdiction B’s in-migrants include workers leaving A for B only. A similar symmetric treatment is applied to jurisdiction A’s in-migrants and jurisdiction B’s out-migrants. Second, when computing estimates of the number of IJEs received by A from B, the new methodology now excludes both jurisdiction A’s in-migrants and out-migrants.^Note  Likewise, when computing estimates of the number of IJEs sent by B to A, both jurisdiction B’s in-migrants and out-migrants are now excluded.

With these changes in the process adopted in the new methodology, the number of IJEs sent by a given province or territory to all other jurisdictions is now consistent with the number of IJEs received from that province or territory by all other jurisdictions.

Impact of the revision of the methodology

Chart 1 shows the total count of IJEs in Canada from the previous and new methodologies. As explained in the last section, the goal of the update is to ensure the counts of incoming and outgoing IJEs calculated from the new methodology are identical. This is reflected in Chart 1, where the two measures from the new methodology are identical to one another.

Another observation is that the total counts of IJEs under the new methodology are moderately smaller compared with the measures under the previous methodology. Nevertheless, the two measures from both methodologies still show very similar trends over time from 2002 to 2020.

In addition to the total counts of IJEs, total annual earnings were also reviewed. Similar to what was found with the total count measures, the level of annual earnings under the new methodology is a bit lower compared with the previous methodology. However, the two measures show very similar trends.

Conclusion

The IJE methodology was revised to ensure that the same numbers are found for incoming and outgoing IJEs between two jurisdictions. With the new methodology, the total counts of IJEs are moderately lower, but the two series (previous and new) show the same time trend. The reduction in counts is more significant for incoming IJEs than for outgoing IJEs because of the new focus of counting IJEs with the main job rather than any job.

Data table for Chart 1

Data table for Chart 1 Table summary
This table displays the results of . The information is grouped by Year (appearing as row headers), IJEs outgoing from the new methodology, IJEs outgoing from the old methodology, IJEs incoming from the new methodology and IJEs incoming from the old methodology, calculated using count units of measure (appearing as column headers).

Year	IJEs incoming from the old methodology	IJEs incoming from the new methodology	IJEs outgoing from the old methodology	IJEs outgoing from the new methodology
	count
Note: IJEs = Interjurisdictional employees. Source: Statistics Canada, Canadian Employer-Employee Dynamics Database, 2002 to 2021.
2002	335,290	314,240	325,350	314,240
2003	326,920	305,640	317,430	305,640
2004	335,790	313,000	326,300	313,000
2005	364,970	338,410	352,510	338,410
2006	401,460	372,440	386,920	372,440
2007	418,630	388,380	403,000	388,380
2008	435,310	404,590	418,520	404,590
2009	390,570	364,710	378,090	364,710
2010	389,240	363,260	376,230	363,260
2011	410,480	381,060	395,530	381,060
2012	434,520	403,040	417,930	403,040
2013	452,450	420,550	436,020	420,550
2014	467,430	436,460	450,930	436,460
2015	448,380	419,320	432,960	419,320
2016	421,580	394,290	408,350	394,290
2017	451,680	421,990	436,280	421,990
2018	449,500	419,330	433,700	419,330
2019	448,740	420,900	433,600	420,900
2020	417,980	392,250	406,230	392,250

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the following individuals: René Morissette, Grant Schellenberg, Christine Laporte, Yuqian Lu, Li Xue and Marc Frenette from Statistics Canada.

Authors

Hanqing Qiu and Ping Ching Winnie Chan are with the Social Analysis and Modelling Division, Analytical Studies and Modelling Branch at Statistics Canada.

References

Laporte, C. and Lu, Y. 2013. “Inter-provincial Employees in Canada,” Economic Insights no. 029, Statistics Canada Catalogue no. 11-626-X.

Laporte, C., Lu, Y., and Schellenberg, G. 2013. “Inter-provincial Employees in Alberta,” Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series no. 350, Statistics Canada Catalogue no. 11F0019M.

Morissette, R. and Qiu, H. 2015. “Interprovincial Employment in Canada, 2002-2011,” Economic Insights no. 047, Statistics Canada Catalogue no. 11-626-X.