Union Wage Rate Indexes for Major Construction Trades, 20-City Composite

Detailed information for July 2001

The Construction Union Wage Rate Index series measure monthly changes over time in the collective agreement rates, where they exist, for 16 trades engaged in building construction in 20 metropolitan areas.

Data release - August 17, 2001

• Description
• Data sources and methodology

Description

The Construction Union Wage Rate Index series measure monthly changes over time in the collective agreement rates, where they exist, for 16 trades engaged in building construction in 20 metropolitan areas. These series can be employed in several ways, including keeping users abreast of pay scale changes within the unionized construction work force, identifying differences between trades and between regions, incorporating them into the escalation clauses of construction contracts and time series analysis.

Reference period: The time period for which the CUWRI equals 100; currently this is the year 1992.

Collection period: Monthly, during the month following the reference month.

Subjects

• Construction
• Construction price indexes
• Labour
• Prices and price indexes
• Unionization and industrial relations
• Wages, salaries and other earnings

Data sources and methodology

Target population

The universe consists of the hourly wage rate of a unionized journeyman for all construction unions for all trades engaged in industrial, commercial and institutional construction projects across Canada.

The population that is observed consists of a subset of 22 census metropolitan areas (CMA) and 16 trades.

Instrument design

This methodology does not apply.

Sampling

This is a sample survey with a longitudinal design.

Error detection

Subject to revisions depending upon the retroactivity of wage settlements. Volatility of market means that not all trades in all cities are covered by collective agreements.

Estimation

Indexes of various trades and aggregation levels are calculated by ratio estimates of average unit prices weighted by fixed weighting patterns within each city.

Disclosure control

Statistics Canada is prohibited by law from releasing any information it collects which could identify any person, business, or organization, unless consent has been given by the respondent or as permitted by the Statistics Act. Various confidentiality rules are applied to all data that are released or published to prevent the publication or disclosure of any information deemed confidential. If necessary, data are suppressed to prevent direct or residual disclosure of identifiable data.

Collected data are converted to price indexes and data are released as such, so that it is not possible to identify the suppliers of raw prices.