Canada Employment: Construction

## What this measures

The number of people employed in one Canadian industry: residential and non-residential building, heavy and civil engineering, and specialty trades. It counts people by the industry of their main job, employees and self-employed together, from the monthly Labour Force Survey, seasonally adjusted.

## Why it matters

Construction employment moves with housing starts and interest rates and is one of the first sectors to respond to rate changes. Comparing sectors shows where hiring is concentrated and where it is shrinking, which the headline number hides.

## How to read it

A rising line means the sector is adding workers; a falling line means it is losing them. Read the change over twelve months, not one: sector estimates from a household survey move by several thousand from sampling alone.

## What it does not say

It is a household survey, so small sectors carry wide sampling error from month to month. It counts people, not jobs, and does not show hours or pay. It does not cover the territories or people living on reserves. It is the Canadian counterpart of the U.S. labor.ces.* payroll series, but it is measured differently (households, not employers).

## Source

Statistics Canada, table 14-10-0355-01 (vector v2057608), "Employment by industry, monthly, seasonally adjusted; Construction; Estimate; Seasonally adjusted". Palanor pulls it from Statistics Canada's Web Data Service every day and rewrites recent periods so revisions carry through.

Source: Statistics Canada. Reproduced and distributed on an "as is" basis with the permission of Statistics Canada. Statistics Canada Open Licence.