Statistics Canada rushing to redo July job numbers

More bad news re StatsCan regarding its having to redo job numbers:

The incident will add fuel to a continuing debate over the quality of the federal government’s labour market data, which, economists contend, has generally been more volatile in recent years.

Peter Buchanan, senior economist with CIBC World Markets, said the error reinforces the fact that markets and policy makers need reliable information.

“Obviously, this does add to concerns on that front,” he said. “Good data is essential to steer the economic ship in the right direction.”

Federal departments – including Finance Canada – have recently used alternative private sector surveys based on Internet job postings to produce job vacancy statistics. That approach led to criticism after the Parliamentary Budget Officer pointed out that the government’s claim of rising job vacancies was almost entirely due to methodological problems associated with using job postings on the classified site Kijiji.

Partly as a response to that criticism, the government announced in June that it would give Statistics Canada an additional $14-million a year starting next year to produce a new job vacancy survey and a new survey on wages.

One of my doctors commented, regarding the cancellation of the Census, that  “there is nothing more costly than ignorance.” The government is paying the price for not having valued good quality data and statistics.

Statistics Canada rushing to redo July job numbers – The Globe and Mail.