Despite funding boost, Statistics Canada jobs-data upgrade will take time – The Globe and Mail

Looks like some long-standing issues between the employer and household surveys. Not surprising that it will take time to build capacity to improve labour market information, but at least there is additional funding and acknowledgment of the need for better information to improve private and public policy:

Officials at Canada’s statistics agency are planning how to spend an additional $14-million a year that the Conservative government announced in June to fund two large new employer surveys.

That announcement followed months of criticism that the government was making policy decisions on everything from training to immigration without reliable job vacancy statistics. Since then, Statscan’s two existing labour market surveys have come under closer scrutiny and criticism.

The agency told The Globe and Mail on Wednesday the new money won’t have any immediate impact on those existing surveys, but Statscan isn’t ruling out changes down the road.

The agency is expected to release a report soon that will explain what led it to make the unprecedented decision this month of pulling its flagship jobs report, a survey of households called the Labour Force Survey, after the discovery of an error in its July numbers.

Despite funding boost, Statistics Canada jobs-data upgrade will take time – The Globe and Mail.