Canada’s False Job Report – Caused by non-responses treatment

Statistics Canada’s investigation into the initial miscalculation of July’s jobs numbers found the issue was related to a major redesign of Canada’s Labour Force Survey, as well as employees’ “incomplete understanding” of processing systems… 

Statscan’s review of the issue reveals that the survey, which undergoes updates after every census, is in the midst of a redesign that occurs once per decade. As a result of changes being made, there was an unintended change in the way the system accounted for missing or incomplete data in its tabulations.

The survey usually accounts for holes in the data caused by non-responses by inserting plausible values where data are missing. Since many groups of respondents are the same from one month to another, there is usually some ability to check a new jobs report against the previous months and account for where data are missing.

Changes to files were made in the system that aggregates and disseminates data as part of the overall redesign in an effort to reduce errors. But since some of the changes were made as a maintenance activity, rather than a facet of the redesign, the testing process missed a step.

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at  Statscan cites flawed survey update for jobs error – The Globe and Mail.

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