General information
The Survey on the Language Requirements of Businesses and Municipalities in Québec aims mainly to find out how important language skills and knowledge are in selecting applicants during the hiring process. This survey is conducted at the request of the Office québécois de la langue française.
Frequency and editions
Every five years
Type of survey
Cross-sectional survey
Regional results: This survey provides separate results for the Island of Montréal and the rest of Québec
Targeted population
The population covered by the Businesses component of the survey includes establishments located in Québec with five or more employees in all North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) industries, except the following:
- NAICS 22 Utilities
- NAICS 53111 Lessors of residential buildings and dwellings
- NAICS 53112 Lessors of non-residential buildings (except mini-warehouses)
- NAICS 53119 Lessors of other real estate property
- NAICS 533 Lessors of non-financial intangible assets (except copyrighted works)
- NAICS 551113 Holding companies
- NAICS 62 Health care and social assistance
- NAICS 8131 Religious organizations
- NAICS 8132 Grant-making and giving services
- NAICS 8133 Social advocacy organizations
- NAICS 8134 Civic and social organizations
- NAICS 81391 Business associations
- NAICS 81394 Political organizations
- NAICS 91 Public administration
The population covered by the Municipalities component of the survey includes all Québec municipalities with 5,000 or more residents as well as all City of Montréal boroughs.
Sampling and data collection
For the Businesses component, the sampling frame used to select the sample is constructed based on Statistics Canada’s Business Register (BR) database.
2023: 3,420 establishments.
2018: 3,362 establishments.
For the Municipalities component, the sampling frame was created based on two files from the Données Québec website.
2023: 189 municipalities and 19 City of Montréal boroughs.
2018: 181 municipalities and 19 City of Montréal boroughs.
Themes or topics
Characteristics of most recent hiring, promotion or lateral transfer; hiring process and language requirements for most recent position filled; assessment of language skills and selection of an applicant; interest for bilingual applicants and language training.
Technical and methodological information
Rapport méthodologique 2023 (PDF, 419,17 Ko)
Rapport méthodologique 2018 (PDF, 459,47 Ko)
Questionnaire d'enquête 2023 - volet établissement (PDF, 867 Ko)
Questionnaire d'enquête 2023 - volet municipalité (PDF, 831 Ko)
