04 Aug Statscan v. US Census Bureau

Contrarian reader Wallace McLean noticed something else about those maps:

[T]he US Census Bureau seems to generate unemployment data for the 3,140 counties and “county-equivalent” units of geography below state level, with an average population of under 100,000.

Statistics Canada only provides (roughly) comparable data for 73 “economic regions” within Canada, with no sub-provincial/territorial data for PEI or the territories. The 73 regions have an average population of over 450,000.

Even if you could get free and up-to-date data out of Statscan, it’s not nearly as fine-grained as what they seem to have in the States. There would seem to be some fundamental methodological difference in how the two stats agencies approach measuring employment and unemployment.