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The Daily. Wednesday, June 27, 2001

Employment, earnings and hours

In April, average weekly earnings for all employees were virtually unchanged at $661.05. On a year-over-year basis, average weekly earnings were up 1.8%.

Average weekly earnings were almost unchanged in April in both goods- and services-producing industries. In goods-producing industries, there were slight earnings decreases in mining, construction and manufacturing. Earnings in services-producing industries were reduced slightly by declines in real estate and leasing as well as education and health. These declines were somewhat offset by earnings gains in wholesale and professional services. Public administration average earnings were also down in April because of the addition to payrolls of casual Census workers.

Average hourly earnings for hourly paid employees were $16.65 in April, up 5 cents from March. Average weekly hours for hourly paid employees were down a slight 0.2 to 31.6 hours. Average overtime hours remained unchanged from March.

The number of employees on payrolls rose 13,000 in April. However, this increase includes the addition of temporary Census workers and the offsetting impacts of strikes and work stoppages in education and transportation. With the temporary employment impacts excluded, payroll employment in April was little changed.

Note: Starting with the January 2001 data, the Survey of Employment, Payrolls and Hours is now publishing its estimates based on the North American Industry Classification (NAICS). The NAICS-based estimates are not comparable to the previously published estimates based on the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) of 1980. To facilitate this transition, NAICS-based historical series from January 1991 to December 2000 have been produced. Please note that the levels of employment and average earnings of the NAICS based series have been adjusted to reflect the levels derived from the administrative sample and were also affected by slight modifications to the industrial coverage and improvements to the methodology of the survey. In addition, seasonal factors have been revised to improve the historical consistency of the seasonally adjusted estimates.

A concordance table for NAICS and SIC codes is available on request. A description of the conversion process and its impact on the data is also available in the January 2001 issue of Employment, earnings and hours (72-002-XIB) or may be obtained from Jean Leduc (613-951-4090; fax: 613-951-4087; labour@statcan.gc.ca). For more information on the NAICS, consult the Statistical methods page on Statistics Canada's Web site (www.statcan.ca).

Available on CANSIM: tables 2810023-2810040 and matrices 17000-17221, 17224-17235, 17238, 17252-17264 and 17266-17283.

Detailed industry data and other labour market indicators will be available in July through standard tables in the monthly publication Employment, earnings and hours (72-002-XIB, $24/$240). Annual averages for 2000 are now available on CANSIM and by custom tabulations from the Labour Statistics Division.

For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact Robert Frindt or Jean Leduc (613-951-4090; fax: 613-951-4087; labour@statcan.gc.ca), Labour Statistics Division.

Average weekly earnings for all employees

Number of employees