Labour Market Activity Service (LMAS) CD-ROM Users Guide

Abstract

The three disks contain seven separate files and each file contains about 60,000 samples of individuals. Five different samples represent the annual populations, 1986 to 1990; one file contains 1986-87 two year histories for a sample of individuals, and a second file contains 1988-1990 three year histories for another sample of individuals.

Note: Copy of LMAS manual is available at EDRS office. For further information contact the EDRS Office.

Introduction

Information obtainable from the LMAS:

• measures the frequency and number of job changes occurring in the Canadian Labour Market over one year (within cross sectional files) or over two or   three years (within longitudinal files) for years 1986 to 1990.
• provides information on variable characteristics taken from either an individual or job universe. Demographic, job, employer, labour force status variables such as wage rates and work schedules have been provided.
• identifies groups of people who would benefit from Employment and Immigration Canada (EIC) programs or have taken part in specific EIC programs between 1986 and 1990.

Getting Started

1. Press any key on the title screen to proceed.

 

 
 




2. Select Language
• Press "E" for English
• Press "F" for French






3. After you select the language, the Main Menu will appear.

 

 
 








4. By pressing the Down Arrow key on the keyboard, highlight "Retrieval". If you press the right/left arrow key the program will switch languages from English to French.
5. Press the "Enter" key on your keyboard.
6. The program will prompt you to specify the output location, where it will save the extracted data file after you finish retrieving your data from the CD. At this point, you only need to specify the drive and the directory where you wish the extracted data file to be saved. The actual name of the file should not be specified here.

 

 
 








7. After you select the output location, the program will ask you to select the year of the data that you require, and whether the extraction will be on longitudinal or cross-sectional data. Longitudinal data is data that spans a period of time, for example from 1986 to 1987. In comparison, cross-sectional data is like a snapshot, it gives the data as at a specific period in time, for example the data the end of 1986. To decide
• Highlight the year and type of data you require, by using the Up/Down arrows key.
• Press the "Enter" key to proceed.








8. You will now access the LMASDBA Extraction menu.

The name of the extraction file that will be saved on your disk is in the top right corner of the screen. The default name is "demo", but the name can be changed by the user.







9. By using the right/left arrows key, you can access the various option available at the LMASDBA extraction menu such as:
• Extract Specification File
• Access by Index
• Access by List
• Review Saved Variables
• Perform an Extract
• Exit this Menu


The last option is to exit this menu at any time and return to the data type and period selection screen.
 
 

10. To change the extracted data filename, select "Extract Specification File", and hit the "Enter" key.

 

 
 










There are 3 options now available to the user:
 

1. Modify changes an existing file extraction which was previously created and saves only the modified version.
2. New creates a new file.
3. New from old creates a new file from an existing one and saves both the old version and the new one.
• If New is selected, then the user is prompted to enter in a filename, without extension (e.g. do not type in ".m86" portion of the name). The filename cannot be more than 8 characters long. Press the "Enter" key when finished typing the name.
• If Modify is selected, a list of previously saved extract files in the output location appears. By using the left/right arrow keys, select the file to be modified and press the "Enter" key.
• If New from old is selected, both of the procedures explained above take place, since the "new" file will be a version of an "old" file and both will be saved as existing specification files. First a list of previously saved extract files appears. One of these files must be chosen to be modified. Then when a file name is chosen for modification, a prompt for the new file name will appear.


When the extract specification file is finally selected, the new filename with its automatically attached extension appears in the box labelled "Save File". One of the other menu choices on the screen must now be selected to work with the data and place it in the file.
 

11. This software allows 2 different methods to select and search for the same variables:

 
1. Access by Index
2. Access by List


Access by Index is itself divided into 2 different access methods:
 

1. Any Word in Context
2. Classification
• Any Word in Context allows the user to construct an extract file from any of the terms used in the context of the questions including the variable names themselves. Any of the words, numbers, or variable names used in the survey questions may be accessed within the context of their variables to build an extract specification file.  Any of these terms can be combined to include or exclude their corresponding variables in context. The inclusion or exclusion depends on the use of Boolean operators. The default Boolean operator is AND, but this can changed to either OR or NOT.
• Classification allows the user to construct an extract file from any of the mutually exclusive classification terms. The access provided by this screen and its operations are similar to Any Word in Context except the classification items are mutually exclusive. Therefore, a Boolean operator of AND between two classifications would result in zero (0) variables being selected for the file. However, "classification terms" may be combined with a Boolean OR. "Classification terms" may also be combined with one or more "Any Word in Context" terms via AND or any other operator.


If Access by List is chosen from the screen, the box labelled List would appear offering the user a single type of list access. Variable Name allows the user to construct an extract file from any of the variable names. This name is a unique identifier for a single datum in the data set. This access is useful when notes or documentation contain references to a variable using its name or when the user wants to explore the location of the variable within its immediate environment of other variables.

For the sake of this short tutorial, we will show how to use one of the two possible methods to select the variables from the Access by Index option. The procedure is the same whether you access by Classification or by Any Word in Context.
 

12. Select " Access by Index" and press the "Enter" key.
13. Two new options will be enabled:
• Any word in context
• Classification




Select the "Classification" option by using the up/down arrow keys and press the "Enter" key. You will be promoted to a new screen.
 

14. In the new screen, you will have to select a classification depending on the type of data you require.

 

 
 




There are various options available in this screen, and they can be selected by the function keys (example of function keys are F4, F1, F2). "AF2", for example implies pressing the [ Alt ] key and [F2 ] key together.

There are three ways to find and select a term in the Classification list:
 

1. up/down arrow keys:  Scrolls the highlight bar up or down through the whole list, respectively. The "Enter" key will then select the highlighted term.
2. Typing the first character of the term will move the highlight bar to the first term in the list that begins with that character. The "Enter" key will then select the highlighted term.
3. [ F4 ] key: Brings up a search box and the exact term desired may be typed in the box. Pressing the "Enter" key will activate the search and automatically select the closest match to the term typed.


Now, for the purpose of this search, lets assume that we wish to search for variables which have data concerning income OR family. What we want this search to specifically give us is all the variables which have data about either income or family. If Boolean AND was to be chosen, it would imply the search should give us all those variables which have data related to both family and income. If the search was such that it required  us to find all those variables that have data on income, but NOT data on family, then the search specification would be "income NOT family".
 

15. Using one of the three search methods, select income. Press the F6 key again to specify the Boolean OR. The screen should now look like this:

 

 
 




Now select family:



The total entries label at the end specifies that there are 28 variables which fit the requirements of your search.

You can also switch to the Any Word in Context access method by pressing the [ Alt ] key and [ F1 ] together, and then continue your present search there.

If a selected term turns out to be a mistake or reduces the total entries to zero (0), its selection may be undone with the "AF2" keys.  However, only the last term in the series may be undone.  To deselect a term just selected, use both the [Alt] key and [F2] together. Terms selected prior to the last one may be undone with the [ Alt ] + [ F2 ] method, but each term must be backtracked through and undone one at a time. To clear an entire search strategy, press the [ F9 ] key.
 
 

16. The search strategy and the variables obtained may be viewed at any point in the selection process.  To see the variables obtained, press the [ F8 ] key (Execute). At this point, the screen will list all the variables available from your search:

 

 
 




At this point, the user must decide which variables they want to perform the extract upon, i.e. to save those variables. To save a variable, highlight the variable you require, and then press the [ F3 ] key. The little label at the bottom right of the screen, "Saved", will now have "Yes" next to it. You may save more than one variable for extraction. What this option does, is that it stores the name of the saved variables to the output file specified by the user.

Executing the search strategy will display the variables on the screen but they will not yet be saved to the extract file.  Viewing the variables before saving them to the file can be useful in refining the search further.

More often than not, it is a good idea to view the code book for a particular variable. The code book provides vital information concerning the variable and the data in it. To view a code book, highlight the variable required and press the [ F2 ] key:



It is also possible to save variables from two or more totally distinct searches, and then run an extraction on all of them

Once all the required variables have been saved, press the [ F10 ] key to exit to the main menu.
 

17. When Access by List is chosen, a box labelled List pops up:

 

 
 




To execute list access by Variable Name, press the "Enter" key.
 

18. The new screen enables the user to move directly to a page where the desired variable is located, rather than scroll through all of the variable names sequentially.  To aid in finding the right page, the range of variables on a page is indicated by the variable names e.g.,

PERSONID -- CLFS8619.



To select a page, highlight it by using the up/down arrow keys, and press the "Enter" key.
 

19. The new screen will list all the variables associated with that page. The highlighted variable's name and textual description are shown. The classification with which it is associated is identified.  The minimum and maximum range of possible answers are listed. Whether or not the highlighted variable is saved in the current extract file is also indicated. As before, a code book giving additional information about the variable can be viewed by pressing the [ F2 ] key.

 

 
 




To procedure to save a variable for extraction is the same as that for the different access, you have to highlight the required variable, and press the [ F4 ] key. Once all the required variables have been saved, exit to the main menu.
 

20. Once all the required variables have been selected, you can review them by highlighting the Reviewed Saved Variables option. In case there are no saved variables (i.e. the output file does not have the names of any variables saved on it), the program will print an error message saying "No Variables have been selected. THIS IS THE EMPTY SET". Otherwise, the screen output will be something like this:

 

 
 




It is also possible to view the code book, as well as unsave the variables here.

After the saved variables have been reviewed to check whether they are the ones required, all that is left is to run the extraction from it.
 

21. The last option available on the main menu screen for working with data is "Perform an Extract" on the data.  When this option is chosen from the main menu, the following screen appears:

 

 
 




This screens is the "Extract Specification" menu.  From this menu the data in one of the files can be finalized in a combination of several procedures. Each box gives specific information and you can move from box to box by using the left/right arrow keys. To move within a box, use the up/down arrow keys, and to select a specific action, highlight it and press the "Enter" key.
 

• Sample Specification: This box allows the user to further qualify the universe of the "sample". There are 4 ways to do this:
• Construct Boolean Specification: Boolean specifications can be used to extract records based on a value range within a variable.  Extraction through the use of Boolean specifications is optional.
• Limit Provinces: This function allows the user to limit the data to a few specified provinces. The default action is that all provinces are included. To select/deselect a province, highlight "Limit Provinces ..." and press the "Enter" key. After that to deselect a province, highlight and press the "n" key, and to select a province and press the "y" key.
• Select 1  of every 1 case(s): The third limit on the sample universe is the Select 1 of every _ case(s)option. When this option is chosen, the number of cases selected for the sample can be reduced.  "1 of every 1 case" is the default value. To decrease the number of cases, and therefore the size of the sample, highlight the "Select 1  of every 1 case(s)" option and press the "+" key, to increase the number of cases press the "-" key. The "+" key may be used to "select 1 of every 2, 4, 10, 20, 50, or 100 case(s)".
• The sample can also be reduced by sex. To change the entry of one of the sexes, highlight the option and press either the "y" key to include or the "n" key to exclude a sex.

 
• File Type Specification: The "File Type Specification" box is used to specify what format the output file should be written in. Only one of the options may be "Yes" at any time. To toggle the "Yes" / "No" option highlight the option and press the "y" key for "Yes", and the "n" key for "No". This feature allows the user to save the extracted file in other applications. The default application is SAS, but the software also allows you to save the extracted data as SPSS or dBASE Data Files. If you wish to access the data in Microsoft Excel, then the best procedure would be to save the data in the dBASE file format, as dBASE files can easily be opened in Microsoft Excel.

 
• Extract File Information: This box gives various information about the output file of the extract.

 
• Actions:

 
• Run Job Extract or Run Person Extract: These two options will carry out the extraction procedure from the selected variables. The LMAS data has been organized into two separate headings, if you perform a "Person extraction", the extraction will be on data pertaining to a particular respondent on one physical record. On the other hand if you run a "Job extraction", the extraction will be on data pertaining to a job held by an individual.

 
• When the extract is run, a series of messages will appear at the bottom of the screen. If the extract cannot be performed on the data a message to that effect will appear. When the extraction is being performed, the status of the extraction process is related on-screen to the user. After this, a documentary file is written and its name is communicated to the user along with the output file format information. When the extraction is complete, the case data and time are reported. The extracted file listed in the "Extract File Information box" with a file extension of ".DAT" will be generated and written to the directory given as the "Output location":  [c:\] at the time the program was started.

 
• Produce the Code book: This option produces a code book of the data in the output file and it is stored in a file with the same file name as the output file (e.g., Demo) but with an extension of ".CDB".

 
• Exit this Menu: This option will return you to the main menu.

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