Labour Force Survey Microdata File

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This public use microdata file contains non-aggregated data for a wide variety of variables collected from the Labour Force Survey (LFS). The LFS collects monthly information on the labour market activities of Canada's working age population. This product is for users who prefer to do their own analysis by focusing on specific subgroups in the population or by cross-classifying variables that are not in our catalogued products.

This file contains both personal characteristics for all individuals in the household and detailed labour force characteristics for household members 15 years of age and over. The personal characteristics include age, sex, marital status, educational attainment, and family characteristics. Detailed labour force characteristics include employment information such as class of worker, usual and actual hours of work, employee hourly and weekly wages, industry and occupation of current or most recent job, public and private sector, union status, paid or unpaid overtime hours, job permanency, hours of work lost, job tenure, and unemployment information such as duration of unemployment, methods of job search and type of job sought. Labour force characteristics are also available for students during the school year and during the summer months as well as school attendance whether full or part-time and the type of institution. These and more are available by province and for the three largest census metropolitan areas (Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver).

This is a monthly file, and is available going back to 1976.

Information by format

([B] = Bilingual; see "Bilingual products" below )

Content note

Included in the CD-ROM is the User Guide (Catalogue no. 71M0001GIE) which provides documentation about survey concepts and definitions; survey methodology; data collection; data processing; data quality; guidelines for tabulation, analysis and release; as well as sampling variability tables; weighting; the LFS Questionnaire and record layout, available in portable document format (PDF).

Microdata specifications

Survey month: monthly as of 1976

Universe: civilian household members aged 15 years and over
Number of records: 104,358
Total weighted number of units: 24, 605,179
Number of variables: 135
File size: 14,268,000
Format: ASCii

Survey month: last month 2001

Universe: civilian household members aged 15 years and over
Number of records: 104,358
Total weighted number of units: 24, 605,179
Number of variables: 135
File size: 14,268,000
Format: ASCii

Subjects

Keywords

demographic characteristics, demography, jobs, labour force, labour force survey.

Free access

These data are available at no additional charge to Canadian educational institutions participating in the Data Liberation Initiative.

Bilingual products

Some bilingual products have changed to separate English and French products. In these cases, back issues are bilingual and the more recent issues are unilingual.

Contacts

For more information about our products or services, please contact us.
85600 - Labour Statistics Division