Labour Market Indicators: What Employment Data Actually Shows
What the sessions cover
Weekly Breakdown
- Week 1
- Survey methodology — how labour market data is collected in Canada and the US
- Week 2
- Defining employment — who counts, who does not, and the six unemployment measures (U1 through U6)
- Week 3
- Participation rates and what drives long-term changes in labour supply
- Week 4
- Sector and demographic breakdowns — reading disaggregated data
- Week 5
- Putting it together — live walkthrough of a Statistics Canada Labour Force Survey release
Live session schedule
One live session per week on Thursdays at 6:30 PM Eastern. All sessions are recorded. Participants also have access to a shared workspace for dataset exercises.
Understanding economic indicators — what this program addresses
Published 04/2026. Reading takes approximately 6 min read.
The monthly jobs report is one of the most watched economic releases in North America. Markets move on it, central banks reference it, and politicians cite it constantly. Yet the headline unemployment rate is only one of several figures published in the same report — and often not the most informative one.
The figures that rarely make the headlines
Labour force participation rate, employment-to-population ratio, underemployment, and average hours worked all appear in the same data release as the headline unemployment figure. Each one adds something the headline misses. This program works through each measure systematically.
You will look at how Statistics Canada and the US Bureau of Labor Statistics define employment, how survey methodology affects results, and why seasonal adjustment sometimes creates more confusion than clarity.
Sector-level and demographic breakdowns
Aggregate figures hide enormous variation. An unemployment rate of four percent looks very different when broken down by age group, industry, or region. Reading disaggregated data is a skill this program builds deliberately over five weeks.
A single national unemployment figure is a starting point for analysis, not a conclusion.
Participants will work with actual published datasets, not simplified examples. By the final week, you will be able to read a full labour force survey release and identify the trends that the summary tables do not highlight.