Finding the Jewels

Among the Stones

Spelunking

for the “Five-Minute-a-Year”

DLI Contact

E. Hamilton,

Accoleds/DLI December 2006

“So many acronyms!!—How do I get to know what is in

the collection? I haven’t even had time for lunch in the

past four years and I don’t get enough questions to

plumb the depths!”

This session presents an approach to the needs of the

“5 minutes per year” data person who is wearing many

hats and needs to find that match between the data

and the user in the DLI collection.

The Challenge

Product Highlights

• It is an additional mode of learning and is audience driven

(the DLI contacts get to vote for their favourite new acronym)

• It is visual and broad—and is not a substitute for IMDB,

subject experts, or any other official information sources.

• Started with conscripted volunteers who took a product and

gave 10-minute overview of items in the DLI collection.

•There have now been 10 minute spots on:

DGAIS, ED, SPED, SPSD/M, Aeeeh, SARTRE, CBP,

FPICB, PEA, ESAS, ICO, XCL, KLEMS, a few more

acronyms and some revisiting…

Product Highlights

• We have now broadened the scope to include families of

products where we do a bit of “compare and contrast”.

Included in the family relationship series have been:

Labour force (LFS, SEPH, Census, etc.), Health, Justice,

Classification systems, definitions & terminology used in

the STC world

Common to each product highlight are five basic

questions:

Product Highlights: Key Elements

• What is it?

• When would I use it?

• What does it look like?

• What do I need to know?

• Where can I get more information?

Product Highlights: Key Elements

• Must be short but pithy

• Focus on value to the collection in meeting needs of patrons

• Handouts are good; helps with the focus

• Sharing experiences is a bonus!

One example is worth a

thousand words, right?

AN INTRODUCTION TO …

“ED”

What is it?

ED=Employment Dynamics

- Excel spreadsheets

- Selected statistics on businesses and the number of jobs

involved at a national and provincial level

- Includes the number of employers/businesses organized

by province, industry, employment size and life status

(continuing, new, defunct); indicating aggregate payroll and

their employment levels.

- Statistics for 1983/84-1997/98 (updates in sight, Monia?)

- Stats are pulled from a longitudinal database [LEAP] of

all businesses that issue T4 slips, so StatsCan can

relate the following:

In 1997, there were about 955,800 active employers of all sizes. About

718,000, or 75%, had fewer than five employees; 213,000 or about 22%,

had between 5 and 50…. In 1996, about 145,500 employer businesses with

fewer than 50 employees began operations, up 2.6% from 1995. At the

same time, 125,900 firms of the same size went out of business, 11.7%

fewer firms than went out of business in 1995. The Daily, 8 March 2000

With ED, your users can do the same sort of analysis for

different industries or province

When would I use it?

What does it look like?

When you unzip the file (english.zip), a directory called “ED” is

created and you will see the following structure unfold before your

eyes:

ED Data Tables Alberta

AB (Divisions).xls 2,175 KB

AB (Major Groups).xls 10,850 KB

AB (Total All Industries).xls 117KB

British Columbia

Canada

[etc.]

Documentation

GeneralProductInformation.DOC

IndustryCodes.XLS

LicenceAgreement.DOC

TableNotes.DOC

“Newly-identified employers added 516,000 jobs; a loss of 399,000 jobs was

attributed to firms that terminated, and firms that were present in both 1997 and

1998 contributed a net addition of 556,000 jobs.” The Daily 13 June 2001

What do I need to know?

What is the difference between the files available? It is the level of detail in

the industry code. In the three files for Nova Scotia, for example:

NS (total all industries).xls 11 columns and 643 rows

(the single code, Z00, is for “all

industries”)

NS (divisions).xls 11 columns, but 12,614 rows

(representing industry divisions)

NS (Major groups).xls 11 columns, but 49,154 rows

Print out the General Product Information and Table Notes.

These two documents are concise, providing an introduction to ED,

Industry Codes, and including key definitions (like what an ALU is).

Documentation is not bad, but ask on the DLI-List

if you have questions.

Related products include SPED (Sub-provincial

Employment Dynamics), Canadian Business

Patterns, Small Business Profiles, and Insights

on… (61F0019XIE, available freely for

downloading on the Statistics Canada web site.

Where Can I Find More Information?

Family Relationships

Looking at products by subject area

In the Dysfunctional Family…

Census Geography (including PCCF family) Census Tables (DA and FSA level geog.) Historical Census pumfs/profiles KLEM: capital, labour, energy & material

database Catch and Effort Data: Atlantic Fisheries

Files only on the FTP server for really good reasons.

The Labour Family

They’re not the mafia, but they’re tough!

A Tale of Sibling Rivalry

Who/What Are They?

•They breed.

•They are everywhere

•They are powerful

•They get respect*

* Even from the Auditor General

SFS

LFS

SEPH

SLID

ELI

LAD CENSUS

AEEEH

EIS SHS

Labour force statistics provide an important economic indicator in

Canada. We need to understand their roots to help users come

to terms with using the statistics and related data files.

And more…

The Health Family Tree

And Mixed Marriages

Who produces what?

The Working Family

User Guides and Reference

Sources

What are they?

More than this:

What do they look like?

Global View of Surveys

System of National Economic Accounts

Guide to Statistics Canada pension and wealth surveys

Publicly available data resources

in the nonprofit sector in Canada

Guide to Transportation Data

Business Portal

When Would You Use Them?

Got a

question?

I need to know how the LICO are

calculated. “20 percentage

points more” of what? Is it gross

income, disposable income, or

total consumption?

I'm looking for

something called

"the real effective

exchange rate".

Is output gap the

same as potential

GDP?

What surveys do

you have that deal

with labour topics?

Help! This doesn’t

make sense!

What Do I Need to Know?

Finding them is the big challenge • Try the codebook; read the footnotes

• We love Definitions, Data Sources and Methods:

– Check individual surveys for sightings of “Additional

Documentation” and “Summary of Changes over Time”

• Search Online Catalogue and STC search:

– “user guide, manual, handbook, sources, method*, concepts”

plus the subject or survey you need

Definitions, Data Sources and Methods

Changes

over time

Publications

Be Imaginative!

Thank you!

Want to See

More Examples?

SPSD/M

• Social Policy Simulation Database and

Model

• Allows “What if” questions relating to financial flows between households and governments

• Learning curve steep; DOS an asset

• Documentation critical to read!

SPSD/M Components

SPSD/M Look and Feel

Start-up screen

Parameter setting

Output screen

DGAIS: Dangerous Goods Accident Information System

1998-2002

* Annual estimates of employment, average weekly earnings, and total

weekly payrolls.

What is it?

Annual estimates of employment, earnings and hours (aeeeh)

• Spawn of SEPH (Survey of employment, payroll and hours)

• Presented as aggregate statistics

• Business, rather than social survey

• Available straight up, or packaged

•1981-2005 (no quarterly stats)

Annual estimates of employment, earnings and hours (aeeeh)

• Employment numbers

• Average weekly earnings

• Total payroll By type of employee (hrly,all) For industries (NAICS) Annual and monthly data

By size of enterprise

Tutorials:

Beyond 20/20

Acrobat

Tables

72-002:

Employment,

Earnings and

Hours

Table no.

Table Title Frequency

File name

Table 1

All employees:

estimates of employment by NAICS 2002 code (326)

Annual

Tab_1aa.ivt

Monthly

Tab_1mh.ivt

Table 2

All employees:

estimates of average weekly earnings by NAICS 2002 code

(326)

Annual

Tab_2aa.ivt

Monthly

Tab_2mh.ivt

Table 3

All employees:

estimates of total weekly payrolls by NAICS 2002 code (22),

Annual

Tab_3aa.ivt

Monthly

Tab_3mh.ivt

Table 4

Employees:paid by the hour,

estimates of employment by NAICS 2002 code (288)

Annual

Tab_4aa.ivt

Monthly

Tab_4mh.ivt

Table 5

Employees:paid by the hour,

estimates of average hourly earnings by NAICS 2002 code

(288)

Monthly

Tab_5aa.ivt

Monthly

Tab_5ah.ivt

Table 6

Employees:paid by the hour,

estimates of average weekly hours

Annual

Tab_611.ivt

Monthly

Tab_6mh.ivt

Table 7

Employees:paid by the hour,

estimates of total weekly payrolls

Annual

Tab_7aa.ivt

Monthly

Tab_7mh.ivt

Data by size of enterprise

estimates of employment, average weekly earnings for all

employees; average weekly earnings for hourly employees

Annual

Tab_sca.ivt

Quarterly

Tab_sca.ivt

When would I use it?

You would use aeeeh if you need monthly data

or when you cannot retrieve statistics from

CANSIM. First time users would be wise to

consult the e-pub first for definitions

When should you

(a) chose aeeeh as a product over the e-

publication, Employment, Earnings and

Hours (72-002IXB)?

(b) Turn to aeeeh instead of the SEPH Cansim

tables?

What Does It Look Like?

Tutorials:

Beyond 20/20

Acrobat

•2003 annual

highlights

•Guide to Aeeeh

Tables

72-002:

Employment,

Earnings and

Hours

Data by size of enterprise: annual (Tab_sca.ivt)

What do I need to know?

Table 281-0027 AWE unadjusted for

seasonal variation, by type of employee

for selected industries classified by

NAICS, annual

Canada

All employees

Regular & OT hours

Logging

All dates

CANSIM Offerings

The data are available in aeeeh—but it is unclear whether these figures include overtime or not (they do, btw)

Aeeeh:

Canada

All employees

Logging

All dates

What else do I need to know?

• Mother survey is SEPH

• Formerly, annual data in print/e-pub (Annual estimates of Employment, Earnings and Hours 72-0002); now discontinued. Annual data only though the DLI or for fee.

• The publication, Annual Estimates, included growth rates for selected

industries that are not included in aeeeh.

• Employment, Earnings and Hours is still produced as a monthly electronic publication through the DSP.

•Why would you even consider the e-print version? Documentation!!

It is easy to find out, for example, that librarians and university presidents are

grouped in with employees paid by the hour, along with janitorial staff--unless

classified as academics in the payroll records.