July 30, 2013 (Previous notice)
The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) is currently being revised. The revised NAICS will be available in 2017, and will be known as NAICS 2017.
At this time, Statistics Canada is soliciting input from data producers and data users to ensure their needs continue to be met by NAICS. Proposals for changes to NAICS should be submitted to standards-normes@statcan.gc.ca. Guidelines for the revision of NAICS classes are presented below to assist you in providing input into the NAICS revision process.
Input is requested by July 31, 2014. Decisions on proposed revisions will be made by January 2016, following a review within Statistics Canada, with other government departments and non-government entities, and with our counterparts at the Mexican Instituto Nacional de Estadistica y Geografia (INEGI) and the Economic Classification Policy Committee (ECPC) of the United States, acting on behalf of the Office of Management and Budget.
Statistics Canada, INEGI and ECPC collaborate on NAICS to make the industry statistics produced by the three countries comparable; they will continue to do so for NAICS 2017.
Guidelines
Submissions may be made for any industry, existing or newly created. Proposals for the modification of an existing industry must contain information on the rationale for the change and demonstrate an improvement to its definition. Proposals for the addition of a new industry must contain information on the grouping criteria for creating the industry, the production function, the relative size of the proposed industry and its economic significance. This input will also be used to assess confidentiality issues and costs of change to data producers and data users, and to negotiate with Mexico and the United States.
You may send more than one submission, if that enables you to comment earlier.
NAICS Canada 2012 may be viewed at: North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) 2012.
Please consider the following criteria when preparing your input to the revision of the North American Industry Classification System.
Criteria for creating new classes or updating current classes
The criteria for creating new classes or updating current classes are as follows. Proposed classes should:
- Meet the process-based conceptual framework agreed to by Canada, Mexico and the United States for grouping producing units. The principle underlying NAICS is that units that have similar production functions should be grouped together in the classification.
- Be consistent with classification principles of mutual exclusivity, exhaustiveness, and homogeneity of units within classes.
- Have empirical significance, that is, classes should produce gross revenues of $500 million, be collectable and publishable, and linked to a funded program for data collection.
- Be relevant, that is, they must be of analytical interest, result in data useful to users and be based on appropriate statistical research and subject matter expertise.
- Be given special attention as far as the following industries are concerned and for which lower revenue requirements will be considered:
- new and emerging industries;
- services industries;
- industries engaged in the production of advanced technologies.
Use of the North American Product Classification System (NAPCS)
Users of economic classifications may want to consider and evaluate whether their needs are better met with a product classification rather than an industry classification. NAICS classifies units according to their production function, resulting in groupings of units that do similar activities using similar resources but not necessarily in groupings of similar products or outputs. The North American Product Classification System (NAPCS) is a classification that organizes the goods and services produced by the establishments, within a demand-based conceptual framework. Statistical needs may be better met with product data crossing industries rather than with the creation of a new industry. Proposals for changes to NAICS will be evaluated within the context of both the industry and product classification systems.