Canadian Survey on Working Conditions (CSWC)

Detailed information for September 2024 to June 2025

Status:

Active

Frequency:

Occasional

Record number:

5411

The Canadian Survey on Working Conditions (CSWC) aims to measure all core dimensions of quality of employment—including working time and work-life balance, skills development and training, and security of employment—to better understand how different job characteristics are distributed across the employed population.

Data release - To be determined

Description

The CSWC complements data from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) and its supplements to offer a comprehensive picture of quality of employment in Canada. It gathers information from employed Canadians on their work arrangements and working conditions with the aim of providing a better understanding of the quality of employment in Canada as well as the relationship between working conditions and well-being.

Quality of employment is an important issue for society, policy makers, governments, and researchers. Employment is key to the social and economic advancement of workers and provides them with a sense of identity, but it may also be associated with risks for health and well-being.

The CSWC provides information to all levels of governments that can support funding decisions, help identify priorities and plan important programs.

Topics covered by the CSWC include:

- The physical and social environment at work
- Working time quality
- Work intensity
- Discrimination at work
- Training
- Work and life satisfaction
- Use of artificial intelligence and automation
- Job prospects and pensions
- Work-related physical and psychosocial well-being

Reference period: 2024-2025

Collection period: September 23, 2024 to October 18, 2024; December 16, 2024 to January 17, 2025;
March 17, 2025 to April 17, 2025; June 23, 2025 to July 18, 2025

Subjects

Hours of work and work arrangements
Job training and educational attainment
Mental health and well-being
Wages, salaries and other earnings
Workplace organization, innovation, performance

Data sources and methodology

Target population

The target population for this survey is a subset of the target population of the LFS. The CSWC specifically samples individuals who indicated that they were employed in the LFS. Excluded from both the LFS and CSWC coverage are persons living on reserves and other Indigenous settlements in the provinces, full-time members of the Canadian Armed Forces, the institutionalized population, and households in extremely remote areas with very low population density. These groups together represent an exclusion of approximately 2% of the population aged 15 and over. In addition, residents of the Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut and those aged 70 or older are excluded from the CSWC.

Instrument design

The questionnaire was developed by Statistics Canada. Experts from the Questionnaire Design Resource Centre carried out qualitative interviews and prepared an evaluation report. All comments and feedback from qualitative testing were carefully considered and incorporated into the survey whenever possible.

Frame:
The LFS selects its sample from the Area Sample Production System Frame. The CSWC samples directly from LFS respondents who have completed their sixth month of participation in the LFS.

Sampling

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

The CSWC is a sample survey with a cross-sectional design administered to a sub-sample of LFS respondents, and therefore its sample design is closely tied to that of the LFS. The CSWC uses the rotation groups that completed their sixth month of participation in the LFS in July, August, September, November, January, February, April or May.

A small number of records are excluded before sample selection begins: respondents with invalid names, imputed records from the LFS, respondents denying Statistics Canada permission to call them, and respondents aged 70 and older.

Among the in-scope records, all of the available LFS sample is kept. In order to reduce the response burden within the household, one person per household is selected.

Sampling unit:
The CSWC inherits the stratified multi-stage design of the LFS. In the LFS, a small contiguous geographical area, called a cluster, is the sampling unit at the first stage. The sampling unit at the second stage is the dwelling. For the CSWC, there is a third stage, where the sampling unit is the person.

Stratification method:
The stratification methodology is the same as the one used for the Canadian Labour Force Survey (Catalogue No. 71-526-X, 2.5 Stratification, available online).

Sampling and sub-sampling:
The LFS uses a probability sample that is based on a stratified multi-stage design. Each province is divided into large geographic stratum. The first stage of sampling consists of selecting smaller geographic areas, called clusters, from within each stratum. The second stage of sampling consists of selecting dwellings from within each selected cluster. The CSWC then selects one employed person aged 15 to 69 per household that completed its sixth month of participation in the LFS.

Total sample size is approximately 9,250 respondents per cycle.

Data sources

Responding to this survey is voluntary.

Data are collected directly from survey respondents.

Household members selected for the CSWC are contacted within seven weeks of their last LFS interview.

Respondents have the option to complete the survey online, or over the telephone with the assistance of an interviewer. If the respondent does not complete the questionnaire online, they will be contacted by an interviewer to complete the survey.

Similar to the LFS, the interviewers are asked to make all reasonable efforts to obtain the CSWC interview. Refusals at first contact are followed up by a senior interviewer.

Proxy response is not allowed in the CSWC.

The CSWC is available in both English and French.

The average time required to complete the survey is about thirty minutes.

To enhance the data from the CSWC and to reduce the response burden, Statistics Canada will combine the information provided in the CSWC with information from the LFS.

View the Questionnaire(s) and reporting guide(s) .