FAQ
Got a quick question?
It's important to us to engage with our community and facilitate public discussion about the issues in our posters. That's why any frequently received questions or concerns will be posted right here.
September 2019, Series 1:
Why does your Oil & Gas poster include employment statistics instead of Gross Income / Share of Provincial GDP (Gross Domestic Product)?
.Choosing just one statistic to demonstrate the effects of different industries on the Albertan economy was incredibly difficult. Here at CRPP, we do our best to simplify our stats for accessibility, so the usual multi-indicator process sometimes has to be simplified, which can mean we have to use our discretion. Of course, the best way to understand our economy is to use as many indicators as possible. If you're interested in learning more about GDP share by industry, we recommend the "Gross domestic product (GDP) by industry, provinces and territories: Interactive tool" regularly updated by Statistics Canada for a breakdown of GDP growth by industry. (Available at: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/71-607-x/71-607-x2019024-eng.htm)
We decided to use a breakdown of employment, not income, for a variety of reasons, including:
-Because Labour Share ("Wage Share") statistics by industry are of ten structurally flawed, and sometimes absent. For example, there is generally no way to demonstrate how labourers at different levels of an organization (i.e. employees vs. management vs. ownership) are compensated relative to one another; nor is there any way to determine how much of this total income remains in province. As an example, this could mean that two firms report exactly the same Wage Share - even though one is a locally owned firm in which all employees receive a roughly equal middle-class income, and the other is a foreign-owned firm in which non-local executives receive 80% of the Wage Share, and most employees receive sub-poverty wages. This is particularly relevant to Alberta, where many firms are foreign-owned.
-Employment-by-industry is easily attained through self-reporting and exhaustively documented by Statistics Canada
-Gross Income / GDP often has little to do with real-world labour effects, as it includes numerous types of assets, income, capital, etc.
-In order to demonstrate that the majority of individuals in Alberta do not have direct employment from this industry, and that in fact that number is quite low when compared with other industries.
-Because there is no clear evidence that income received by individuals in high-income brackets is distributed to individuals in low-income brackets through market distribution (the "trickle-down economics" theory).
At the moment, GDP and Gross Income Statistics are under fierce debate concerning their value as economic indicators. We feel that if our primary concern is the quality of life of individual Albertans, Employment Statistics are the most prescient tool for determining what the impact of any given industry on daily life.
We decided to use a breakdown of employment, not income, for a variety of reasons, including:
-Because Labour Share ("Wage Share") statistics by industry are of ten structurally flawed, and sometimes absent. For example, there is generally no way to demonstrate how labourers at different levels of an organization (i.e. employees vs. management vs. ownership) are compensated relative to one another; nor is there any way to determine how much of this total income remains in province. As an example, this could mean that two firms report exactly the same Wage Share - even though one is a locally owned firm in which all employees receive a roughly equal middle-class income, and the other is a foreign-owned firm in which non-local executives receive 80% of the Wage Share, and most employees receive sub-poverty wages. This is particularly relevant to Alberta, where many firms are foreign-owned.
-Employment-by-industry is easily attained through self-reporting and exhaustively documented by Statistics Canada
-Gross Income / GDP often has little to do with real-world labour effects, as it includes numerous types of assets, income, capital, etc.
-In order to demonstrate that the majority of individuals in Alberta do not have direct employment from this industry, and that in fact that number is quite low when compared with other industries.
-Because there is no clear evidence that income received by individuals in high-income brackets is distributed to individuals in low-income brackets through market distribution (the "trickle-down economics" theory).
At the moment, GDP and Gross Income Statistics are under fierce debate concerning their value as economic indicators. We feel that if our primary concern is the quality of life of individual Albertans, Employment Statistics are the most prescient tool for determining what the impact of any given industry on daily life.