Infoline Highlights: Coverage for the week of February 4-8

Food Services and Drinking Places - Sales at B.C.’s food services and drinking places jumped 16.3% during 2017. Receipts at full-service restaurants, which represent the largest share of provincial sales, climbed 7.6%, but drinking places (+3.5%) limited-service eating places (+4.4%) and special food services (+9.1%) also fared well.
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Charitable Donations - Approximately 687,620 British Columbian taxpayers made a charitable donation during the 2017 tax year, a slight (-0.2%) decrease over the previous year. This accounts for roughly 19% of B.C.’s total number of taxfilers, only slightly below the national average (20%).
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Grandparents - In 2017, there were 971 thousand grandparents aged 45 and older in B.C., according to the General Social Survey (GSS) on Family. This was up from 694 thousand in 1995. The share of older cohorts of grandparents is also on the rise.
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Labour Force Statistics - The unemployment rate in British Columbia was 4.7% in January, up 0.3 percentage points from December and down 0.1 percentage points from 12 months ago. The labour force (+16,000) and the number of jobs (+8,700) increased from December.
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Building Permits - The value of building permits increased 22.0% (seasonally adjusted) in December from the previous month. There were increases in permits for institutional (+57.0%), commercial (+32.1%), industrial (+14.5%), and residential (+14.3%) projects.
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Exports - As noted in Infoline issue 19-06: “Canadian International Trade Data” on January 17, the February 5 Canadian international merchandise trade data for the December 2018 reference month did not occur and will be released at a later date.
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Head Offices - There were 2,729 head offices in Canada in 2017, unchanged from one year prior. At the same time, B.C. saw its count inch up between 2016 and 2017 (from 307 to 308). The number of head offices increased or remained unchanged in seven provinces.
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Current Surveys

• BC Hydro Workforce Profile Survey
• BC Public Service Exit Survey
• BC Public Service New Job Survey
• BC Student Outcomes Survey of Apprenticeship and Trades Training Students
  
• BC Student Outcomes Survey of Diploma, Associate Degree and Certificate Students
  
• Canada-BC Job Grant Outcomes Survey
• Diversity and Inclusion Survey
  
• FrontCounter BC Customer Satisfaction Survey
• Labour Market Agreement for Persons with Disabilities Outcomes Survey
  
• Long Term Disability (LTD) Application Process Survey
• New Entrants to Agriculture
• School District No. 22 (Vernon) Employee Engagement
  
• Service BC Citizen Satisfaction
• Service BC Contact Centre
  
• Service BC Registries and Online Services
  

You can read more about any of these by visiting our Current and Recent Surveys page.