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Basic results by population group, Canada, combined sample from Panel 1 (1993 to 1998) and Panel 2 (1996 to 2001)
Population groups	Sample	Population	Total unemployment	Time in labour force per person	Time in unemployment per person	Average mean unemployment spell length per person ¹	Unemployment spells per person
Population groups	number	thousands	millions of weeks	weeks			number
Labour force	27,836	24,147	443	270.9	18.4	9.2	0.9
Never unemployed	16,181	14,154	0	287.8	0.0	0.0	0.0
Ever unemployed	11,655	9,993	443	246.9	44.4	22.2	2.2
Seldom unemployed	1,065	958	2	285.7	2.2	2.0	1.1
Middle deciles	8,792	7,591	258	256.4	34.0	17.3	2.2
Chronically unemployed	1,275	952	130	203.6	136.3	53.6	3.4
Always unemployed	523	492	53	108.5	108.5	77.4	1.7
1. Each respondent's total weeks in unemployment were divided by his/her total number of spells over the panel period, yielding the mean unemployment spell length per person. The "Average mean unemployment spell length per person" column gives the average value of this statistic for the groups indicated. The formula used is unbiased but not "consistent" in the sense that this "average of means" is not equal to the average number of unemployed weeks divided by the average number of spells. A "consistent" estimator would generate a downward bias in this particular case. Mean unemployment spell length is underestimated for any respondents who were unemployed just prior to or after the study period (known as left and right censoring). Source: Statistics Canada, Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics.