The Three Groups of the Population When Statistics Canada surveys the population, it places people in one of three categories: employed, unemployed, or not in the labour force. This figure shows the number of people in each category in 2012. The Canadian population was 34.88 million in 2012, while the sum of the three categories in this figure is only 28.32 million. The difference is explained by the fact that the Labour Force Survey deliberately excludes individuals in all of the following categories: (1) persons younger than 15 years old; (2) persons residing in the Yukon, the Northwest Territories, and on Native reserves; (3) full-time members of the armed forces; and inmates in institutions.