"What's New" in services data and analysis

Studies and statistical information released from July 2006 to December 2006 pertaining to the service industries.

Recently released Industry Reports
Recently released analytical studies and reports
New initiatives

Recently released Industry Reports

Business Conditions Survey: Traveller accommodation industries - Fourth quarter 2006 

According to the recent results from the Business Conditions Survey for the Traveller Accommodation industries, Canadian hotel operators' expectations for the fourth quarter have been the lowest this year. They anticipated lower: occupancy rates, room nights booked, number of business travellers and number of hours worked. However, respondents to the survey still expected daily room rates to rise.  More hoteliers (29%) anticipated the occupancy rate to decline than those expecting an increase (20%). The expected number of room nights booked and number of corporate travellers followed a similar pattern.  See related article form The Daily

Restaurants, caterers and taverns - October 2006  (preliminary)

Newspaper publishers - 2005

Architectural services - 2005

Architectural firms recorded healthy revenue gains across the country in 2005, with firms in Western Canada continuing to be at the forefront benefiting from the spike in building construction brought about by the ongoing economic boom driven by the thriving energy and mining sectors. Notably, the industry also enjoyed a resurgence in Central Canada, in contrast to its contraction in 2004.  Despite declining growth in the housing sector, operating revenues of architectural firms climbed to $2.1 billion in 2005, up 7.2% from a year earlier and almost triple the growth rate recorded in each of the two previous years. Increased business investment in non-residential construction (which accounts for the bulk of architects' revenues) helped boost the industry in 2005.  See related article form The Daily

Internet service providers - 2005

The nation's Internet service providers (ISP), excluding cable and wireless Internet access providers, grew more profitable in 2005.  According to new data from the Survey of Internet Service Providers for 2005, earned operating revenues for the industry amounted to $1.9 billion, up 9% from 2004.  As well, the industry's operating profit margin was 19%, up from 17% in the previous year. Much of this improvement was due to the strong performance of the industry's largest firms.  See related article form The Daily

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Recently released analytical studies and reports

Study: The Alberta economic juggernaut - 2005

Alberta is in the midst of the strongest period of economic growth ever recorded by any Canadian province.  Its nominal gross domestic product (GDP) rose 43% between 2002 and 2005, and there is no sign of slowing down so far in 2006. As a result of this unprecedented boom, Alberta has the highest share of its population employed and the lowest unemployment rate of any province or state in North America.  See related article from The Daily

Study: Competing for the retail drug market - 2005

Pharmacies still dominate the retail drug market. However, between 1998 and 2005, they lost market share to food and general merchandise stores.  Pharmacies accounted for 84.0% of sales of prescription and over-the-counter drugs in 1998. However, by 2005, this share had tumbled to 76.9%. At the same time, the proportion of drug sales in both food stores and general merchandise stores edged up.  See related article from The Daily

Study: Importance of knowledge capital for innovation in successful companies - 1992 to 1998

Study: Trends in business bankruptcies - 1980 to 2005

The rate of business bankruptcies in Canada has declined to a 25-year low, but losses resulting from failures have not, according to a new study.  The study, which analyzed data from the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy Canada and Statistics Canada, found that far fewer firms are going bankrupt, but the average size of the net financial losses from bankruptcy has been rising. Recent bankruptcies have involved large liabilities.  See related article from The Daily

Domestic travel - Third quarter 2005 (preliminary)

Canadian residents made 69.4 million visits within the country during the third quarter of 2005. Of this number, 36.1 million had pleasure as the main trip purpose and 26.3 million were to visit friends and relatives. Together, these two categories accounted for 90.0% of all the visits made by Canadian travellers within Canada. The number of visits made for business reasons totalled 2.5 million while those made for other reasons, such as attending a wedding or going to a medical appointment reached 4.5 million.  See related article from The Daily

E-commerce: Shopping on the Internet - 2005

Canadians ordered just over $7.9 billion worth of goods and services over the Internet for personal or household consumption in 2005, according to data from the new Canadian Internet Use Survey. They placed almost 50 million orders on-line during that year.  E-commerce, that is the value of orders made on-line, still represented a very small fraction of the $762 billion in personal expenditures on goods and services that consumers made last year. However, the new survey confirmed the popularity of on-line shopping from both domestic and foreign vendors.  See related article from The Daily

Cable and satellite television - 2005 

In 2005, less than 10 years after Internet services by cable were introduced, the cable television industry reached a significant milestone when it hooked up its three millionth customer.  As of August 31, 2005, the industry had 3.4 million Internet customers, up 18.9% from the previous year. The industry therefore had nearly one Internet subscriber for every two television subscribers, which was evidence of the significant restructuring completed in just a few years.  See related article from The Daily

Travel Activities and Motivation Survey - 2006

Patterns of vacation travel have undergone a major shift during the past six years, according to new data from the Travel Activities and Motivation Survey. The survey collects information on travel habits and motivators, and participation in recreational activities.  The biggest change occurred in the proportion of adults who reported taking vacations to overseas nations in the two years prior to the survey, which was conducted between January and June this year.  In 1999, when the survey was last conducted, only 19.5% of the adult population reported that they had taken a vacation to a country other than the United States. By 2006, this proportion had jumped to 27.5%.  See related article from The Daily

Study: Our lives in digital times

Digital technology did not create "the paperless society" that many had predicted, at least not yet, but it does have people communicating more than ever, according to a new assessment of the impact of information and communications technologies (ICTs).  See related article from The Daily

Quarterly financial statistics for enterprises - Third quarter 2006 (preliminary)

Corporate operating profits climbed 2.8% to a record $58.4 billion in the third quarter. However, three-quarters of the increase was in the petroleum refining and the banking industries. Excluding these two industries, operating profit edged up a more modest 0.8%, comparable to the second quarter increase. Profit growth has slowed considerably in 2006 following average quarterly gains of 4.1% in 2005. See related article from The Daily

Deposit-accepting intermediaries: Activities and economic performance - 2005

The value of services produced by deposit-accepting intermediaries (chartered banks, trust companies, caisses populaires and credit unions) increased in 2005 at their fastest rate since the turn of the millennium, thanks to robust growth across most business lines.  In total, these intermediaries produced services worth $61.7 billion, up 6.8% from 2004. This was the fastest annual rate of growth since 2000 when the high-tech boom fuelled growth of 10.6%.  See related article from The Daily

Canadian economic accounts - Third quarter 2006 and September 2006

The pace of economic activity was largely unchanged in the third quarter, following a pronounced slowing in the second quarter. Real gross domestic product (GDP) advanced 0.4%, compared to 0.5% and 0.9% growth in the second and first quarters respectively. In the third quarter of 2006, a turnaround in exports, a pickup in business non-residential investment and a slight acceleration in personal expenditure, were offset by a further decline in investment in residential construction and notably weaker government current expenditures and inventory accumulation.  See related article from The Daily

Survey of Suppliers of Business Financing – 2005

The debt load held by Canadian businesses increased for the second year in a row in 2005. Larger businesses, those with loan authorizations of more than $5 million, accounted for most of the increase.  Commercial suppliers of financing, including banks, finance companies and insurance companies, reported that their Canadian business clients owed them an estimated $411.5 billion, a 10.7% increase from 2004.   See related article from The Daily

Study: Retail gift cards - 2003 to 2005

During last year's Christmas holiday season, 8 out of every 10 of Canada's largest retailers offered gift cards for their customers, a huge increase from only two years before, according to a new study.  During the 2003 Christmas holiday season, 53% of large retailers had made the cards available. Just two years later, this proportion had ballooned to 82%.  See related article from The Daily

Labour productivity, hourly compensation and unit labour cost - Third quarter 2006

Labour productivity in Canadian businesses fell by 0.1% between July and September, slightly less than the 0.3% decline posted in the second quarter. This was the second straight decline following seven consecutive quarters of positive growth.  Productivity gains in mining, oil and gas extraction, financial, insurance and real estate services, and rental services, along with those in wholesale trade were completely offset by losses in the manufacturing and construction sectors.  See related article from The Daily

Survey of Household Spending - 2005

Strong energy prices fuelled the biggest gain in household spending in eight years during 2005 as Canadians allocated more of their household budget to gasoline and utilities.  At the same time, households in the booming Western provinces and territories had more to spend for automobiles, cell phones and electronics.  On average, each household spent $66,860, up 5.1% from 2004.  See related article from The Daily

Consumer Price Index - November 2006 

Consumer prices accelerated in November as recent downward pressure from declining gasoline prices began to disappear, homeowners paid more to repair their homes and higher mortgage costs.  Canadians paid 1.4% more for the goods and services in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) basket in November than they did a year earlier. Despite this increase, the growth rate of the all-items index remains well below the 2.3% average for the last five years.  See related article from The Daily

Wholesale trade – October 2006

Wholesale sales edged down slightly in October, leading the industry to its first back-to-back monthly declines in two years. Lower sales of automotive products were responsible for most of October's decrease.  After falling 1.8% in September, wholesale sales slipped a further 0.2% in October to $41.6 billion. Most of the decline was caused by another significant drop in automotive sales (-3.2%), which have fallen continuously since hitting a peak in July. Small declines in sales were also registered by wholesalers of building materials, "other products" and food, beverage and tobacco products.  See related article from The Daily

Retail trade - October 2006

Retail sales fell in October for the second month in a row, as sales in the automotive sector continued to decline and back-to-school spending on clothing wrapped up.  Total retail sales fell 0.7% to an estimated $32.6 billion in October. October's decline, combined with the decrease in September, nearly offset the gains made in July and August, resulting in a relatively flat trend for retail sales. Prior to this period, retail sales have been generally rising at a rapid clip since 2004.  See related article from The Daily

Gross domestic product by industry - October 2006

Economic activity remained essentially unchanged in October after contracting 0.4% in September. Both the goods-producing sector and the service sector stood still. Unlike their performance the previous month, the energy and utilities sectors experienced strong growth. However, these gains were offset by the losses registered in several sectors, including manufacturing, wholesale trade and retail trade.  See related article from The Daily

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New initiatives

Some important new initiatives involving Statistics Canada's Service Industries Division:

Quarterly Services Indicators: Most of the service industries data presented in this publication come from annual surveys. Since these data must be collected, processed, and then put through several quality control procedures, the annual results can only be released about 12 to15 months after the end of the reference year. A new project is underway to create more timely sub-annual industry indicators based on administrative tax data. This will lead to the release later in 2007 of quarterly revenue growth rates for some service industries to supplement the annual data. Moreover, timeliness will be vastly improved because the quarterly indicators will be available three months following the relevant quarter. This section will update readers regarding future progress for this initiative.

Integration of Culture Statistics Program: Another important initiative is the integration of Statistics Canada's culture industry surveys. At present, data for many cultural industries are released every 2 to 3 years rather than annually. Moreover, these data are not fully comparable to other data sources. In 2007 the integration of these surveys into the Service Industries Division program will lead to higher quality annual statistics for an expanded number of cultural industries — even at the provincial level. For example, the performing arts, heritage institutions, archives, film, sound recording and periodicals industries will have improved coverage. The data will also be released in a timely manner. This initiative will reduce costs and response burden by eliminating duplication in data collection and processing. As well, the new survey results are expected to not only be consistently measured across the culture sector, they will also be more comparable to those recorded in the United States and Mexico.

Business Conditions Survey, Traveller Accommodations: The traveller accommodation industry is an ideal candidate for a Business Conditions Survey because leisure and business travel are often affected when household and corporate budgets are adjusted in response to changing economic conditions. This new initiative springs from a partnership between Statistics Canada, The Canadian Tourism Commission and the Ontario Ministry of Recreation and Culture. The latest results from this Business Conditions Survey appeared in Statistics Canada's Daily of November 14, 2006. The survey of nearly 1,400 businesses, most of which are hotels, is conducted to assess their outlook about key indicators such as bookings, occupancy rates, room rates, and hours worked by employees. A pilot project was recently launched to assess the feasibility of conducting a similar Business Conditions Survey for the Tour Operators industry.

Service Industries Newsletter: This is the fourth edition of a Newsletter that covers a wide variety of service industries for which statistics and industry reports are made available. Each issue also has a new Feature Article pertaining to one or more service industries or, occasionally, the service sector as a whole. Also provided is a link to an Analytical Paper Series, also available for free. The Series currently comprises about 50 papers. Through this Newsletter, one can also learn about the methodologies used for business surveys and easily locate information that is helpful to survey respondents. It is envisioned that once our quarterly sub-annual program is implemented, this Newsletter will be published on a quarterly basis to coincide with the Quarterly Services Indicators releases and serve as the primary release vehicle for these indicators.

Monthly Restaurants, Caterers and Taverns Survey (MRCTS) reengineering project: The purpose of this initiative is to revamp the survey and its infrastructure. These projects are carried out periodically (the last one dates back to 1995) to take full advantage of the technological advances and keep the survey up-to-date in terms of concepts and methods. The MRCTS reengineering will therefore maximize the use of GST data (which will reduce the response burden) and harmonize the MRCTS conceptual base with that of the Annual Survey of the Food Services and Drinking Places Industry, as well as with the upcoming changes to the Business Register and with the Department's general standards. The first estimates following the MRCTS reengineering should be released in the summer of 2007.