Gross Domestic Product by Industry - Provincial and Territorial (Annual)

Detailed information for 2022

Status:

Active

Frequency:

Annual

Record number:

1303

The purpose of this statistical program is to provide information for current economic analysis. It provides a measure of the economic production which takes place at the provincial and territorial level of Canada from an industry point of view.

Data release - May 1, 2023; November 8, 2023 (Provincial and territorial economic accounts)

Description

The primary mandate of this statistical program is to compile and disseminate current measures of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at basic prices by industry, at the provincial and territorial level. GDP at basic prices is the sum of its factor incomes (wages and salaries, supplementary labour income, mixed income, and other operating surplus) plus taxes on production less subsidies on production.

The growth rates of GDP provide an indication of how well an industry or an economy is doing. The GDP of an industry (also referred to as value added) equals output by the industry minus the value of intermediate inputs that were purchased from other industries, domestic or foreign. Value added is a measure of how much an industry has contributed to the value of its output over and above the value of intermediate inputs. GDP by industry for the economy as a whole is the sum of values added by all industries resident in Canada.

GDP by industry is prepared for 226 industries and subsequently aggregated to some 337 individual industries and aggregates to provide a variety of levels of detail useful for analysis of industrial economic performance, using the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) Canada 2017 Version 3.0.

The GDP by industry measures provide an alternate dimension that supplements the income and expenditure-based GDP estimates, and constitute an extension of the Canadian System of Macroeconomic Accounts, Supply, Use and Input-Output tables.

The GDP by industry measures help macro policy makers in the Bank of Canada, the Department of Finance and provincial governments to monitor the evolution of the provincial and territorial economies, to formulate policies to guide this evolution, and to decide on the timing of their implementation. Industry-specific data also assist private sector analysts at commercial banks and stock brokerages, who need to assess the risks and opportunities associated with doing business in particular industries, provinces and territories.

Statistical activity

The Canadian System of Macroeconomic Accounts provides a conceptually integrated framework of statistics for studying the state and behaviour of the Canadian economy. The accounts are centered on the measurement of activities associated with production of goods and services, the sales of goods and services in final markets, the supporting financial transactions, and the resulting wealth positions.

The Canadian System of National Economic Accounts disseminates a wide variety of data at the provincial and territorial level on topics such as the environment, government finance, gross domestic product (GDP) and its components, GDP by industry, tourism and labour productivity.

The Supply, Use and Input-Output tables are calculated at the national, provincial and territorial level, but on an annual basis only. They are available about two and half years after the end of the reference year; this is because of the delay in obtaining the needed source data and the complex nature of producing such a detailed account. As a means of providing more up-to-date information to users for current analysis, two industry-based programs, one producing the country's monthly gross domestic product figures (record number 1301) and the other, annual provincial and territorial estimates (record number 1303), have been set up. These two programs, which can be viewed as extensions of the Supply, Use and Input-Output tables, use a set of indicators to project the GDP by industry benchmarks from these tables.

Subjects

  • Economic accounts
  • Gross domestic product
  • Input-output accounts

Data sources and methodology

Target population

The target population is all statistical units resident in Canada involved in the economic activity of producing goods and services.

The observed population consists of all establishments in Canada. The establishment is the level at which the accounting data required to measure production is available. The establishment, as a statistical unit, is defined as the most homogeneous unit of production for which a household, business or government maintains accounting records from which it is possible to assemble all the data elements required to compile the full structure of the gross value of production (total sales or shipments, and inventories), the cost of materials and services, and labour and capital used in production.

Instrument design

This methodology does not apply.

Sampling

This methodology does not apply.

Data sources

Data are extracted from administrative files and derived from other Statistics Canada surveys and/or other sources.

The GDP measures rely heavily on a wealth of information from various areas of Statistics Canada. A large amount of information from various survey divisions within the agency, along with other data, is compiled, integrated and analyzed as part of the complex process of arriving at provincial and territorial GDP by industry.

For example, data from the Monthly Survey of Manufacturing is used for most manufacturing industries. Data from the Survey of Employment, Payrolls and Hours is used for many service industries.

Error detection

Data at the working level industry, the lowest level of industry detail for which GDP estimates are compiled directly, is verified for large year-to-year percentage changes and potential issues arising from source data as well as analyzed for time series consistency, links to current economic events and with respect to coherence with related economic indicators not used in the derivation of the GDP estimates.

Imputation

This methodology does not apply.

Estimation

The current price estimates of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at basic prices (or value added) by industry can be measured directly by summing the factor incomes and depreciation or indirectly by deducting the cost of the intermediate goods and services used in the production process from the value of gross production or output. For any industry, gross output can be described as the total of all costs, intermediate and factor. In some cases, particularly for the non-commercial industries, data on gross outputs are not available and must be estimated indirectly as the sum of total costs.

The production estimates are on a domestic basis, that is, the value of production pertains to that occurring within the geographical boundaries of the provinces and territories. The estimates are valued at basic prices (returns accruing to factors of production including subsides and indirect taxes which accrue to production) and are inclusive of depreciation, that is, are on a gross, not net, domestic product basis.

Real price estimates of GDP by industry measure economic growth of industries with the effect of price variations removed. Real measures of GDP by industry are calculated for individual industries. For all but the most recent two or three years, the annual estimates of GDP by industry are derived within the framework of the Supply, Use and Input-Output tables (SUT). For the years following these most recent tables, estimates of GDP in these periods are projections that are based on such proxy indicators as output or employment.

Aggregate industry and total economy measures of GDP growth are calculated by weighting individual industry growth rates with current price GDP. Current price GDP are obtained from the SUT for the years where such tables are available. For the years following the most recent SUT, weights are estimated using GDP in current prices from the most recent SUT, volume growth of GDP by industry and output prices.

Quality evaluation

Data at the working level industry by province and territory is analyzed for time series consistency, links to current economic events, issues arising from the source data and with respect with coherence. As well, the growth rates of total GDP by industry are reconciled with the growth rates of total income and expenditure based GDP by province and territory (record number 1902).

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.

Gross domestic product by industry estimates are derived from the Supply, Use and Input-Output tables that contain no suppressions for confidentiality. It has been determined that the distance between respondent information obtained from business surveys and administrative data, the aggregated structure and the conceptual and statistical measurement framework underlying the compilation of the Supply, Use and Input-Output tables is sufficiently large such that they mask the information provided by respondents and negate the need for data suppressions.

Revisions and seasonal adjustment

Preliminary estimates are released in the spring following the end of the reference period, and revised in the fall of the same year. The fall release also comprises revisions to the three previous years. Estimates are not normally revised again except when historical revisions are carried out, usually once per decade. Statistical revisions are carried out in order to incorporate the most recent information from surveys, taxation statistics, public accounts, censuses, etc., as well as new methodologies, data sources, concepts or definitions and the annual benchmarking process of the Supply, Use and Input-Output tables.

Seasonal adjustment is not necessary given that the calculations of GDP by industry at the provincial and territorial level are only performed on an annual basis.

Data accuracy

The provincial-territorial GDP by industry depends on the national Gross Domestic Product by industry (record number 1301) and the Supply, Use and Input-Output tables (SUT) (record number 1401) to which it is anchored. When necessary, the provincial-territorial GDP by industry program may be required to use projectors of industrial production which are of lower quality than the underlying GDP from the Supply, Use and Input-Output tables, in these cases quality of the measure is lessened but still acceptable. As well, the availability of appropriate prices affects the reliability of the real GDP estimates. In general, the higher the level of aggregation, the more reliable are the estimates. There is a trade-off between timeliness and accuracy. As more robust data becomes available, estimates are revised and become more accurate until the benchmark SUT are published, two and a half years after the estimates were first published in the GDP by industry. Where possible, data from the most recent annual surveys are used when revising the provincial and territorial GDP.

In general, weaknesses in source data arise mainly from the following:
a) undercoverage; b) inappropriate concepts and definitions. These are briefly discussed below:

a) Undercoverage - This weakness is normally corrected by inflating reported data by a factor that allows the data to represent the universe concerned.

b) Concepts and definitions not suitable for the Canadian System of National Economic Accounts - The data used in the derivation of GDP are quite varied in coverage, details, definitions and concepts and often these factors do not coincide with those required. They must be thoroughly examined and adjusted for consistency and coverage using carefully designed estimating procedures.

No direct measures of the margin of error in the estimates can be calculated. Data reliability is a product of data integration and analysis inherent in the compilation of GDP by industry. They rely both on the quantitative attributes of the data sources used, such as sample size, response rate and coefficient of variation, and on the expert judgment of analysts who undertake data integration of these various sources.

In addition, as the GDP by industry program relies on the annual estimates of real GDP obtained from the Supply, Use and Input-Output tables, the quality of these estimates has a direct influence on the quality of the GDP measures. At the moment, there are no data reliability ratings for GDP by industry estimates in constant prices.

Documentation

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