Quarterly Services Indicators

Detailed information for third quarter 2006

The Quarterly Services Indicators (QSI) provide quarterly movements of operating revenues for selected industries in business and consumer services in order to track their quarterly economic performance.

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

Description

The Quarterly Services Indicators (QSI) track the sub-annual economic performance for industries in business and consumer services, ranging from hotels and accountants to personal care services. The statistical tables include the quarterly movements of operating revenues for selected 4-digit NAICS industries.

As there are few sub-annual output measures for the services industries, the QSI will fill this gap for policy makers requiring more timely information to better assess current economic conditions.

Collection period: During the month following the reference quarter

Subjects

• Business, consumer and property services
• Business performance and ownership
• Financial statements and performance

Data sources and methodology

Instrument design

The indices incorporate both administrative and survey data. For simple establishments, levels of operating revenues reported to Canada Revenue Agency for the purposes of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) are used. A questionnaire gathers information from complex establishments, and is collected at the enterprise level.

The Quarterly Services Indicators Survey questionnaire was designed to collect quarterly operating revenue data from complex enterprises. Given the broad range of industries being surveyed, the questionnaire had to be of a sufficiently generic design to adequately capture the required data and yet specifically exclude data that were deemed outside the scope of interest.

The questionnaire is designed to allow the respondent to report revenues for all thirteen provincial and territorial jurisdictions.

Questionnaire testing was performed by Statistics Canada's Questionnaire Design Resource Center in 2005. A series of one-on-one interviews was conducted with firms in Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal.

Sampling

Data are collected for all units of the target population, therefore there is no sampling. The survey portion of the QIRI is a census of complex units.

Data sources

Data are extracted from administrative files.

The data are derived solely from Goods and Services Tax (GST) data.

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