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Effects of Trades Deregulation on Labour Supply: The Case of Compulsory Trades Certification in British Columbia using Labour Force Survey data
This event is part of Love Data Week 2025, co-sponsored by SFU, UBC, UNBC, and UVic. Registration is open to everyone.
Compulsory Trades Certification in British Columbia (BC), Canada provides an experiment to measure the impact of deregulating compulsory certification, a form of occupational regulation and licensure. Beginning in 1967, several trades occupations in BC required a government recognized certification to practice work in these trades. In 2003, the government of BC repealed compulsory certification, and 11 formerly compulsory trades no longer required certification to practice.
To study the impact on labour force participation, Jacob obtained data from Statistics Canada’s Labour Force Survey via its Real Time Remote Access-RTRA by 5 digits National Occupation Code facilitated by UVic’s StatsCan Librarian on labour force status for ten formerly compulsory certification trades (Autobody and Collision Repair, Automotive Service Technician, Industrial Electrician, Construction Electrician, Plumber, Powerline Technician, Refrigeration Mechanic, Roofer, Sheetmetal Worker, Steamfitter/Pipefitter) at the occupation and province level from 1997 – 2010. There will be a few slides on the (labourious) process of RTRA.
Using a two-way fixed effects difference-in-differences model with a vector of demographic controls, Jacob estimated the change in labour force participation in the selected occupations due to deregulation.
The results indicate statistically significant and positive effects on labour force participation among the study trades combined and for the Construction Electrician, Refrigeration Mechanic, and Automotive Service Technician occupations individually.
Lastly, Jacob implemented an event study to assess the identifying assumption of difference-in-differences and examine whether there are differential effects of deregulation over time. The event study results indicate that deregulation of compulsory certification had an increasing positive effect on labor force participation over time for Construction Electrician and Refrigeration Mechanic.
Jacob Genert, University of Victoria
Daniel Brendle-Moczuk, Geospatial & Social Sciences Data Librarian, University of Victoria Libraries