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Skip Navigation LinksLabour Market Statistics and Publications > Concepts > Incidence Uses
Incidence Uses
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Uses

Incidence data helps us understand the extent to which a certain labour market phenomenon or practice occurred across different segments of the population, or at different points in time.

Comparison over time

For example, with only information on the number of unemployed residents in June 1999 (77,500) and June 2010 (84,400), one may conclude that unemployment was more severe in June 2010 than in June 1999.

However, the actual number of unemployed persons is also affected by changes in the population size, which has an impact on how big the labour force and the unemployed pool is. In our current context, the population grew over time, which has an upward impact on the size of the labour force and the unemployed pool. 

Hence a fairer comparison of the extent of unemployment over time can be made by looking at the unemployment rate, which normalises the size of the unemployed pool by the labour force size in each period. The resident unemployment rate in June 2010 was 4.1%, lower than 4.9% in June 1999. This means that unemployment was less severe in June 2010 than in June 1999.

Resident Unemployment Rate and Number,
1999 to 2010 (June) (Non-Seasonally Adjusted)
  

Comparison across subgroups

Similarly, incidence data provides a fairer comparison of the extent to which a labour market practice or phenomenon affects different subgroups of the population. This is especially the case when the size of one subgroup is much larger than the other.

For example, in June 2010, there were 20,600 unemployed residents with below-secondary qualifications, and 20,800 unemployed residents who were degree holders. These figures by themselves seem to suggest that the impact of unemployment on the two groups is similar.

However, the above figures do not account for the difference in labour force size of the two education groups. There were 565,400 degree holders in the resident labour force in June 2010, higher than the number of 455,300 in the below-secondary group.

After computing the unemployment rate for both groups (i.e. dividing the number of unemployed residents in each group by their respective labour force size), we find that the below-secondary educated had an unemployment rate of 4.5%, higher than 3.7% for degree holders. Hence, unemployment was more prevalent among the below-secondary group than among degree holders.