Canada – Can employers provide information on job vacancies and occupations in high demand ?

The Workplace Survey was an experimental survey conducted in early 2012 by Statistics Canada. The survey was funded by Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, now known as Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC). The goal of the survey was to determine the ability of employers to provide information on a wide range of labour characteristics, including job vacancies and occupations in high demand. Funding of the survey ended on March 31st, 2012, with the completion of collection.

This document will provide some background on the survey as well as describe the survey methodology, processing and lessons learned. In addition, some measures of data quality will be provided based on the survey results.

The Job Vacancy Statistics (JVS) program has been published every month since March 2011. The JVS makes use of the existing Business Payrolls Survey (BPS) sample used as part of the Survey of Employment, Payrolls and Hours (SEPH) program.

When comparing the provincial estimates from the two surveys, a pattern emerges (Table 4). Clearly, the WS survey has higher job vacancy rates than the JVS survey, and these differences are consistent, although not to the same degree across all provinces. The differences between the estimates for the two sources are not always significant, but they are for the largest four provinces (Quebec, Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia).

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at 2011 Workplace Survey: Summary and Lessons Learned.