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In January 2006, a conference on longitudinal surveys hosted by Statistics Canada, the Social and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and the Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR) concluded that Canada lacks a longitudinal survey which collects information on multiple subjects such as family, human capital, labour health and follows respondents for a long period of time. Following this conference, funds were received from the Policy Research Data Gaps fund (PRDG) to support a pilot survey for a new Canadian Household Panel Survey (CHPS-Pilot). Consultations on the design and content were held with academic and policy experts in 2007 and 2008, and a pilot survey was conducted in the fall of 2008. The objectives of the pilot survey were to (1) test a questionnaire, evaluate interview length and measure the quality of data collected, (2) evaluate several design features; and (3) test reactions to the survey from respondents and field workers. The pilot survey achieved a response rate of 76%, with a median household interview time of 64 minutes. Several innovative design features were tested, and found to be viable. Response to the survey, whether from respondents or interviewers, was generally positive. This paper highlights these and other results from the CHPS-Pilot.

In the fall of 2008, Statistics Canada, in partnership with Human Resources and Social Development Canada (HRSDC) and the Canadian academic community, put into the field the Canadian Household Panel Survey Pilot (CHPS-Pilot). This paper describes the background of the project, the steps taken in the development of the pilot survey, and the results of a series of explorations of the data collected.

The Market Basket Measure includes a dimension that defines a family's disposable income. This discussion paper describes considerations for updating the disposable income component and changes to the methodology used for its determination.

This paper examines the robustness of a measure of the average complete duration of unemployment in Canada to a host of assumptions used in its derivation. In contrast to the average incomplete duration of unemployment, which is a lagging cyclical indicator, this statistic is a coincident indicator of the business cycle. The impact of using a steady state as opposed to a non steady state assumption, as well as the impact of various corrections for response bias are explored. It is concluded that a non steady state estimator would be a valuable compliment to the statistics on unemployment duration that are currently released by many statistical agencies, and particularly Statistics Canada.

Using data from the 1976-2001 Canadian Labour Force Survey, we examine the stability of currently held jobs and find no period-long drop in job stability. However, job stability declined across the 1980s and rose across the 1990s for workers with less than one year of tenure. When 1987 and 1995 are compared, it can be seen that job stability was steady in Canada but fell slightly in the United States, with the difference concentrated among medium tenured workers. We suggest that this difference was due to a slower recovery in Canada in the 1990s, which caused Canadian workers to be less mobile.

From September 2018 through April 2019, Statistics Canada conducted a broad consultation on the Market Basket Measure (MBM). This paper will describe the consultations that took place, give highlights of what Statistics Canada heard, and describe next steps.

This paper investigates the link between financial structure and employment growth, and the link between financial structure and inventory growth, among incorporated Canadian manufacturers from 1988 to 1997. It finds that financially vulnerable firms - smaller firms and those with higher leverage - shed nearly 10% more labour than financially healthier firms for a given drop in product demand. The influence was larger during the recession of 1990 to 1992 indicating that higher financial vulnerability, reflected in high leverage, may have worsened during that period. The influence was also greater in sectors that experienced larger cyclical fluctuations. On average, firms with high leverage also tend to cut inventories 5% more when a shock in demand occurs.