The Labour Force Survey is a household survey carried out monthly by Statistics Canada. It is from the survey that the official unemployment rate is calculated. The survey is conducted in 52,000 households across Canada. Excluded are people living in the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, residents of Indian reservations, hospitals, penitentiaries, and long-term care facilities. Also excluded are full-time members of the armed forces.
Respondents remain in the survey for six consecutive months.
Parliamentary legislation has made it mandatory for people to participate in this survey because of the vital information it provides about Canada s labour market. It would be costly and impractical to survey each and every household in Canada. Instead, Statistics Canada employs a statistical method known as sampling. Sampling is an established way to determine the characteristics of an entire population by using the answers of a much smaller, randomly chosen sample. In order to ensure that the sample is an accurate reflection of the population as a whole, the survey results from all sampled households must be collected.