Canada — Labour Force Survey API

What you can build

Resident LFS employment, unemployment, labour force, participation/employment/unemployment rates and published standard errors. Native adjustment, gender/age, units, scalar factors, reliability flags and geographic vintages remain explicit. Monthly national totals exclude territories; annual territorial estimates are separate. Survey estimates are not establishment jobs, vacancies or payrolls; overlapping groups and rates are not additive. Use this dataset as a sourced input to an application, analytical model or retrieval tool. Retain its native dimensions when joining it with your own records.

Query Canada — Labour Force Survey

The example below is a real bounded request against the available release. Replace the environment variable with your server-side API credential. Review endpoint parameters and response schemas before changing selectors.

curl --fail --get "https://api.geoamcan.com/v1/canada/economy?dataset=ca-labour-force&product_id=14100287&geo=Canada&period_start=2026-09&period_end=2026-09&limit=1&dimension_filters=%7B%22Labour+force+characteristics%22%3A+%22Employment%22%2C+%22Gender%22%3A+%22Total+-+Gender%22%2C+%22Age+group%22%3A+%2215+years+and+over%22%2C+%22Statistics%22%3A+%22Estimate%22%2C+%22Data+type%22%3A+%22Seasonally+adjusted%22%7D" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $GEOAMCAN_API_KEY"

Saved response excerpt

{
  "requested_area": {
    "dataset": "ca-labour-force",
    "product_id": "14100287",
    "dguid": null,
    "geo": "Canada",
    "geo_q": null,
    "vector": null,
    "coordinate": null,
    "source_row": null,
    "period_start": "2026-09",
    "period_end": "2026-09",
    "dimension_filters": "{\"Labour force characteristics\": \"Employment\", \"Gender\": \"Total - Gender\", \"Age group\": \"15 years and over\", \"Statistics\": \"Estimate\", \"Data type\": \"Seasonally adjusted\"}",
    "frequency": "all"
  },
  "data": [
    {
      "product_id": "14100287",
      "series_id": "e770ce5d0a640ef04beefbcaa9b608337f422c4a4e4afb4153ce4fe5f7187b6d",
      "source_row": 5466718,
      "period": "2026-09",
      "dguid": "2021A000011124",
      "geo_name": "Canada",
      "vector": "v2062811",
      "coordinate": "1.3.1.1.1.1",
      "dimensions": {
        "Gender": "Total - Gender",
        "Age group": "15 years and over",
        "Data type": "Seasonally adjusted",
        "Statistics": "Estimate",
        "Labour force characteristics": "Employment"
      },
      "uom": "Persons in thousands",
      "scalar_factor": "thousands",
      "value": 21104.8
    }
  ],
  "availability": {
    "status": "available",
    "coverage": [
      {
        "title": "Labour force characteristics, monthly, seasonally adjusted and trend-cycle",
        "series": 8991,
        "records": 5475519,
        "product_id": "14100287",
        "last_period": "2026-09",
        "unavailable": 1448772,
        "first_period": "1976-01",
        "native_dguids": 11,
        "source_release": "2026-10-09T08:30",
        "reported_zeroes": 0,
        "geography_labels": 11,
        "reference_window": "monthly"
      }
    ],
    "ordering": "product ID ascending, native reference period descending, source row ascending"
  },
  "snapshot": {
    "ca-labour-force": {
      "release_id": 122,
      "release": "Labour Force Survey through 2026-09; published table editions",
      "fingerprint": "0d27fd99b1e848a21404eb1c92cc6998"
    }
  },
  "returned_count": 1,
  "complete": true,
  "next_offset": null,
  "limitations": [
    "Statistics Canada Labour Force Survey estimates for residents, not establishment jobs, vacancies, payrolls or local job openings. National/provincial monthly series, CMA/economic-region three-month moving averages and annual territorial/regional figures are distinct; preserve source adjustment, age/gender, statistic, geography and reference period. Canada monthly totals exclude territories; annual territorial coverage is separate. Standard errors are uncertainty measures, not employment counts. Thousands of persons and percentage points/rates differ. Do not sum overlapping groups, average rates or treat missing/suppressed estimates as zero. Sampling/reliability flags, revised historical series and changing geographic vintages remain explicit."
  ],
  "source_attribution": {
    "ca-labour-force": "Statistics Canada; reproduced and distributed under the Statistics Canada Open Licence. https://www.statcan.gc.ca/en/terms-conditions/open-licence"
  },
  "metric_definitions": {
    "value": {
      "meaning": "Source numeric value in published UOM and SCALAR_FACTOR; unavailable/confidential values remain null"
    },
    "value_exact": {
      "meaning": "Original VALUE text, preserved even when suppressed"
    },
    "value_in_base_units": {
      "meaning": "Value multiplied only by the explicitly recognized source scalar label; original UOM retained. No currency conversion or inflation adjustment."
    },
    "status": {
      "meaning": "Native reliability/suppression code; see source product metadata. E means use caution, F is too unreliable, x is confidential."
    },
    "period": {
      "meaning": "Native annual year or monthly reference period. Consult product title for monthly versus three-month moving average; annual totals and monthly data are separate."
    },
    "dimensions": {
      "meaning": "Exact source labels; age, gender/sex, family, income, adjustment and statistic universes must match before comparison."
    }
  },
  "country": "CA"
}

Captured 2026-11-05. Excerpt omits pagination credentials and may shorten nested records. Download verified source responses.

Coverage and interpretation

Statistics Canada Labour Force Survey estimates for residents, not establishment jobs, vacancies, payrolls or local job openings. National/provincial monthly series, CMA/economic-region three-month moving averages and annual territorial/regional figures are distinct; preserve source adjustment, age/gender, statistic, geography and reference period. Canada monthly totals exclude territories; annual territorial coverage is separate. Standard errors are uncertainty measures, not employment counts. Thousands of persons and percentage points/rates differ. Do not sum overlapping groups, average rates or treat missing/suppressed estimates as zero. Sampling/reliability flags, revised historical series and changing geographic vintages remain explicit. Source dimensions, original table metadata, reliability/suppression codes and scalar factors are retained. Geography is joined only to an identical installed native DGUID; unmatched historical vintages are not reassigned to current polygons.

The active release shown here is a catalog snapshot. Check the live catalog and response provenance for current readiness. The underlying public source and Geoamcan access terms are separate; consult the source’s licensing and attribution requirements.

Source and methodology

Source: Statistics Canada. Geoamcan is an independent API provider, with no agency affiliation or endorsement. Read our data methodology for source handling, geographic joins and update practices.

Related data

• Canada — Census Geographic Boundaries
• Canada — Census Population and Dwellings
• Canada — Census Profile
• Canada — Reported Postal Areas and Population