Tuesday, October 2, 2018

Historical unemployment rates by UI/EI region

Question:
I am helping a researcher access Historical unemployment rates by UI/EI region from 1991 to July 1996. There’s a great website on the StatCan Website showing this information http://srv129.services.gc.ca/regions_ae/eng/rates_hist.aspx from 1996 onwards. I am wondering if this data is from the LFS –there’s no source information anywhere on the page.

Wondering if anyone has tips for accessing unemployment rates based upon the employment insurance (EI) economic regions for the period 1991 and July 1996. Prior to 1996 the Economic Region was referred to as subprovincial region https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/92-195-x/2011001/geo/er-re/er-re-eng.htm (although I don’t know if they are equivalent). I couldn’t find any documentation online for this census 1991 and will look in the paper tomorrow.

Some questions:

1.       Are these tables prior to 1996. If so, would they be available at the subprovincial region level?

2.       I would be interested in getting a quote for a custom tab for 1991 to July 1996 based on economic region, if possible.

3.       Source of the above table http://srv129.services.gc.ca/regions_ae/eng/rates_hist.aspx (believe the user received the link from StatCan help desk, it’s an odd url with no breadcrumbs)

Answer:
We received the following response from subject matter:

“The unemployment rate in Canada by EI Economic Regions are based on the LFS data and produced for the EI program (ESDC).

We do not produce custom data by EI Economic Regions, the only available data for which the Labour Statistics Division is responsible, pertaining to the EI Economic Regions, can be found online in table: 14-10-0354-01.

I recommend contacting Employment and Social Development Canada as they are responsible for the EI program as well as the referenced webpages containing the historical rates.”