Ottawa seeks job market clarity – Labour market survey

Good course correction:

The $8-million survey, which was announced several months ago and is just now under way, marks a return to more traditional methods after the Conservative government ran into criticism for relying heavily on a much less expensive private software program.

The Globe and Mail revealed that the government’s claims were the result of a problem with the data, which included jobs from the classified site Kijiji where the same job can be reposted many times, producing a false impression of a rising demand for labour.

When jobs from Kijiji were removed from the data set, the rise in job vacancies essentially disappeared.

Yet one year later, government officials and other labour market observers continue to struggle with the best way to measure the job market in an age when traditional job ads have been replaced with online job boards.

Two federal departments – Finance Canada and Employment and Social Development Canada – continue to pay for a database of online job ads from Wanted Analytics. The company runs software that scans online job boards as well as individual company websites to produce a database of jobs. The database it provides to government departments can be altered to include or remove various sources, including Kijiji.

Finance Canada renewed its contract with Wanted in December for another year at a cost of $18,250.

A Finance Canada spokesperson said the department uses the data along with other sources – such as Statistics Canada and the Bank of Canada – as part of its analysis of the labour market.

Employment and Social Development Canada said it does not use the database for labour market projections.

“This data can still be useful to the department to better understand current labour market conditions as they pertain to online job postings,” ESDC spokesperson Simon Rivet wrote in an e-mail.

Dan Kelly, the president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, said his organization supports the new survey even though some employers complain that answering questionnaires is a form of red tape.

Mr. Kelly said he expects the new survey will support the view of employers that labour shortages are real and that measures such as the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, while controversial, are needed.

“Ultimately we need better sources that everyone can rely on and accept as a true state of affairs on the labour market,” he said.

Now all we need is to reinstate the Census.

Ottawa seeks job market clarity – The Globe and Mail.