Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID)

About SLID

Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) data RETrievel system (SLIDRET) acts as an interface between the database and the user. SLIDRET allows users to create a dataset according to their own specifications. The custom query (.qry) files is submitted to the Real Time Remote Access (RTRA) along with the SAS program. The software is needed to access SLID and is available free of charge via the client service unit.

Note on SLIDRET:

The RTRA system only accepts cross-sectional extractions from SLIDRet. RTRA users should ensure to select CrossSection under "Type of analysis" in the SLIDRet application.

SLIDRet automatically provides the appropriate weight variable option associated with the unit of analysis in "5. Run Query". Therefore, a RTRA user does not need to specify a weight variable (eg: ILBWT26 or WTCSLD26) in "2. Variable Selection" in SLIDRet. An error will occur if a RTRA user submits a query file with more than one weight variable identified.

Submissions

For SLID submissions, we recommend that you convert your SAS code and Query files into .zip files. RTRA allows .zip files to be submitted. This ensures that RTRA will pair the .sas and .qry files correctly. When you submit two files (.sas and .qry) instead of a .zip file, there's a chance that RTRA will not be able to pair the .sas and .qry files.

1. Create a ZIP file with the files SLIDQRY_name.sas and SLIDQRY_some.qry in it. The ZIP file itself can be named anything.
2. Place the ZIP files in the Inbox.
3. RTRA will automatically extract the files in the ZIP, put them in the Inbox and prefix the files with same date and time stamp so that they can be matched. Processing then happens as usual.