Question:
I have a student looking at provincial unemployment rates from the 1960s to present. She’s using the LFS. More specifically, she’s using the Seasonally adjusted labour force statistics for 1966-1972 and the Historical labour force statistics for 1973 to 1989 and CANSIM 282-0002 for 1990 to present, although I think 282-0002 goes back to 1976.
282-0002 doesn’t state if those annual provincial unemployment rates are seasonally adjusted or unadjusted anywhere I can see. In the Historical labour force statistics (1973-1989), the annual unemployment rate can be found in the unadjusted seasonally table. Are the provincial unemployment rates in 282-0002 unadjusted seasonally? Would those figures be comparable with the provincial unemployment rates in the Historical labour force statistics (which are unadjusted seasonally)? Are pre and post 1975 LFS annual unemployment rates comparable?
Answer:
“If the client is referring to annual average data, they are all calculated using monthly unadjusted data. Thus, CANSIM table 282-002 are annual average data based on the average of 12 months of unadjusted data. If the client wants to use monthly seasonally adjusted, I would advise him to use CANSIM table 282-0087. It goes all the way to January 1976.”
