Announcement - Upcoming Labour Force Survey Revisions

Note to readers: Upcoming LFS revisions

Following the release of final population estimates from each census, a standard revision is applied to the Labour Force Survey (LFS) estimates. The revised estimates are scheduled to be released on Friday, January 28, 2011, and will include the following:

LFS estimates are currently based on the 2001 Census population estimates. These data will be adjusted to reflect 2006 Census population estimates and will be revised back to 1996.

Industry estimates will be reclassified to the 2007 North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) from the 2002 NAICS and revised back to 1987.

Geography boundaries will be updated to the 2006 Standard Geographical Classification (SGC) rather than the current 2001 SGC. With this change, six new census metropolitan areas (CMAs) will be added and the boundaries of seven existing CMAs will be modified. New CMA tables will be created based on the 2006 census boundaries and will date back to 1996.

Finally, the 2006 National Occupational Classification for Statistics (NOC-S) will replace the 2001 NOC-S. This change will not affect the LFS estimates as there were only minor changes to the description of the categories.

Please note that the changes to the estimates will be minor. Rates of unemployment, employment and participation are essentially unchanged, as are key labour market trends.

During the revision, CANSIM data for the LFS will not be available from Friday, January 21 to Thursday, January 27, 2011. To facilitate access to the revised data, LFS data on CANSIM will be free from January 28 to February 3, 2011.

The current LFS CMA CANSIM tables based on 2001 census boundaries 282-0052, 282-0053, 282-0056 to 282-0059, 282-0090 and 282-0091 will be terminated and replaced by new tables 282-0109 to 282-0114, 282-0116 and 282-0117 (start date 1996). To help users convert from the current to new CANSIM tables, a concordance table between the old and new vector numbers is available.

* Vector number concordance table (Available on Cansim-What’s new?)

Also, the following current CANSIM tables based on 2001 Census boundaries 282-0064, and 282-0096 to 282-0099 will be deleted and replaced by new tables 282-0115 and 282-0118 to 282-0121.

The revised data will also be available on the Labour Force Historical Review DVD-ROM, which will be released in March 2011. For further information on these changes, contact Client Services (toll-free 1-866-873-8788; 613-951-4090; labour@statcan.gc.ca).