I have a researcher here at UTM who is looking for recent numbers on “freelance expenditures by Canadian periodicals”. In 2005, this researcher was able to get solid data from this Stat Can table which has “Freelance Fees” indicated. <http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/87f0005x/2005001/4068212-eng.htm>. Today, the same researcher is struggling to get more up-to-date data. At the top, there is a link to a “View the most recent version” which takes the researcher to this table: <http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/87f0005x/2013001/t001-eng.htm> however, neither of us could see “freelance fees” listed in the published tables. I tried some other Stat Can resources without success. Would this data still be available from Stat Can or perhaps another source?
Answer
The Subject Matter explained that the freelancer question was part of the employment section of the 2003-2004 questionnaire. Starting in 2005, this question was replaced by a question on the number of contracts workers (including freelancers and casual work). At the same time, we stopped publishing any data on employment.
In the expenses section, we have a question on subcontract expenses (including contract labour, custom work, contract printing and freelancers fees). This data include more than only the freelancers fees but if the client is interested in this value it is published on CANSIM table 361-0031 for reference year 2009 to 2011. It’s published as a percent of the total expenses. If the client would like to have the dollar value of the subcontract expenses, I can provide him a cost estimate. I will need to know if he needs the data at the national or provincial level and for which provinces and then verify if we can provide the data at the level requested.
