This week’s map visualizes Canada’s unemployment rates for October 2014, which were announced last week:

I coded this map with trepidation since comparing unemployment rates across provinces isn’t always as important as considering one province’s current rate against its own historic numbers. For example, this map shows us that Ontario’s unemployment rate still lags behind Alberta’s. No surprise there. What the map cannot do, though, is show that Ontario’s unemployment rate for this month – 6.5% – has finally recovered since the Sept 2008 crash.  The last time Ontario’s unemployment rate was this low was in October 2008. To best visualize the province’s unemployment trend back to pre-recession numbers, one should simply chart the data, or even just give the real numbers in tabular format. The best way to do this on the web is with charts.js, which seems to be some of the easiest coding I’ve ever seen.  That will be my project for later this week.

This map is created with:

• Data from StatCan CANSIM Table 282-0087.
• QGIS, an open source GIS programme
• OpenStreetMap, an open source, crowdsourced world map
  • Mapping imagery by Mapbox
  • Simplified Canadian vector data from Natural Earth Data
• Leaflet.js, an open source javascript library that helps you project maps on the web
• qgis2leaf, a QGIS plugin that automates a lot of the codework