Survey of Job Opportunities

Detailed information for 1993

The purpose of this survey was to identify: the actual and the desired participation patterns of persons inactive due to labour market conditions or their own preferences; the type of work desired by such individuals; those persons who have become discouraged looking for work and believe that no suitable jobs were available; and those persons who were seriously interested in taking a job but who knew that jobs were not available in their community until some future time, due to seasonal or economic conditions.

Data release - May 22, 1995

• Questionnaire(s) and reporting guide(s)
• Description
• Data sources and methodology

Description

The purpose of this survey was to identify: the actual and the desired participation patterns of persons inactive due to labour market conditions or their own preferences; the type of work desired by such individuals; those persons who have become discouraged looking for work and believe that no suitable jobs were available; and those persons who were seriously interested in taking a job but who knew that jobs were not available in their community until some future time, due to seasonal or economic conditions.

Subjects

• Employment and unemployment
• Labour

Data sources and methodology

Sampling

This is a sample survey with a cross-sectional design.

Sample design: The survey is based on the multistage stratified, clustered, probability, area sample of the Labour Force Survey (LFS) (SDDS ID 3701). The sample represents all persons 15 years of age and over residing in Canada with the exception of inmates of institutions, full-time members of the Armed Forces, and residents of the Yukon and Northwest Territories, and Indian Reserves. (These exceptions represent less than 3% of the population.) Reference period: Most of the estimates refer to the week containing the 15th day of the month. Data collection: All interviewing is done by personal visit or by telephone. Wherever possible, the interviewer attempts to obtain the information directly from the respondent but failing that, information is accepted from another household member. Processing: Data capture occurs in the Regional Offices and after the records are transmitted to Ottawa, they are subjected to comprehensive editing, imputation, and tabulation.

Error detection

Sampling errors: The estimates are based on a national sample of slightly less than 1% of the population. The resulting sampling errors, which can be measured, vary according to a number of factors the most important of which is the size of the estimate. Sampling variance indicators are published in "The Labour Force Monthly" (71-001). Non-sampling errors: Errors unrelated to sampling can occur at every stage of a survey. These non-sampling errors range from the respondent misunderstanding the question to errors introduced during processing. Mechanisms to minimize these errors are in place although the final estimates are still affected to some degree. Due to the inherent subjectivity of the focal question of this survey ("DID ... WANT A JOB LAST WEEK") response variance may be particularly severe.

Estimation

The Labour Force Survey (LFS) (SDDS ID 3701) records are weighted using what can be thought of as a three-stage process. The first stage involves the assignment to each record of the inverse of the design sampling ratio applicable to the geographic area where the respondent represented by that record resides. The second stage involves adjustments to the weight assigned in the first stage. These include an adjustment for the rural/urban distribution of the population and an adjustment for non-response (both performed for relatively small sub-provincial areas). It also includes an adjustment for unanticipated population growth in particular small areas selected for the sample (clusters) and an adjustment for the fact that the sample size remains constant (47,500 households) resulting in a slowly declining sampling ratio as the population grows. The third stage involves the comparison of the sum of the weights assigned to the records in the first two stages to population totals derived from sources independent of the LFS. These comparisons are done for 38 age-sex groups for each province. The weights for all records belonging to an age-sex-province group are then adjusted so that their sum is equal to the corresponding independently derived population total. The independently derived population totals are obtained as projections from the annual post-censal estimates of population produced by Demography Division with adjustments to reflect the exclusions described in Design and Procedures.

Disclosure control

Statistics Canada is prohibited by law from releasing any information it collects that 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.

In order to prevent any data disclosure, confidentiality analysis is done using the Statistics Canada Generalized Disclosure Control System (G-Confid). G-Confid is used for primary suppression (direct disclosure) as well as for secondary suppression (residual disclosure). Direct disclosure occurs when the value in a tabulation cell is composed of or dominated by few enterprises while residual disclosure occurs when confidential information can be derived indirectly by piecing together information from different sources or data series.