Stats could show if slump is over and whether there is a rebound outside the oil industry
Opponents in the battle over whether the Canadian economy is collapsing or clawing its way back to recovery will get more ammunition on Friday. That’s when we learn the latest figures on job creation and unemployment.
Statistics Canada’s GDP data that we got earlier in the week is useful, but in several ways, the labour force survey is even better.
“I’d personally put more weight on labour market figures than the GDP,” says Mike Veall, professor of economics at McMaster University. Veall’s specialty is econometrics, reading economics through math and statistics.
Two months late
One of the problems with gross domestic product is that it’s not a simple figure, he says. It is more of a statistical construct estimating the total activity of the entire Canadian economy.
The owner of a Nova Scotia roofing company says he is finally getting his choice of good employees as workers return from Alberta. He says returning oil patch workers have been well trained in safety. (CBC)
One result of that lack of simplicity is a lengthy delay getting a reading of the data. Another is month-to-month inaccuracy.
The long and technical process of gathering all the components that go into creating those GDP calculations takes time. That means we don’t get a reading on each month’s economic growth until months after it happened.
Even then, new data can alter the calculations, resulting in revised figures. This week, for example, Statistics Canada told us the economy had actually shrunk by 0.8 per cent in the first three months of the year after previously telling us it had shrunk only 0.6 per cent.
“The main advantage of jobs numbers is their currency,” says Veall. “They’re more up to date.”
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