Employment and unemployment (LFS)

 

More than forty years have passed since the first attempt was made in 1960 to collect comparable data on employment and unemployment from the six original Member States of the then European Community by means of a labour force survey. Since that date, the number of Member States has risen to twenty-seven and the character of the European labour market has been transformed by the changes which have taken place, for example in employment rates, in the allocation of working-time, and in the distribution of employment across the various sectors of the economy. Throughout this period, the institutions of the European Union have included the issues of employment and unemployment among their highest priorities. In consequence, the demand for accurate and comparable information on the labour market has progressively become more urgent.

 

In this context, the EU LFS has gained steadily in importance and is now universally recognised as an indispensable tool for observing labour market developments and for taking the appropriate policy measures. The EU LFS is the only source of information in these areas to provide data which is truly comparable in the sense of being independent of the national administrative and legislative framework. Among the statistical instruments available in the European Union, the LFS is unique for the sample size it covers, for the length of the time series which it offers, and for the unrivalled picture it can provide of economic and social developments from the early days of the European Community right up to the present day.

 

The most important developments of the LFS are listed below:

• 1960 The first LFS was organised in the six original Member States in 1960 by Eurostat. (Data is only available in paper publications)
• 1968 - 1971 - Annual surveys (Data is only available in paper publications)
• 1973 - 1981 - Biennial surveys (Data is only available in paper publications)
• 1983 - 1991 - Annual surveys on the basis of a revised set of concepts designed to guarantee an improved degree of comparability between the member states. The concepts and definitions used were those adopted by the 13th International Conference of Labour Statisticians of 1982. The methodological basis is described in the publication LFS - Methods and Definitions 1988.
• 1992 - 1997 - In 1992, a number of changes were introduced with the aim of improving the quality of the data and their reliability at national and regional level; Council Regulation (EEC) 3711/1991 specified the contents and reliability criteria for the survey, to be conducted annually from 1992. The methodological basis and the content of the series of surveys between 1992 and 1997 are described in the publication LFS - Methods and Definitions - 1992 series.
• 1995 - LFS covers all 15 Member States.
• 1998 - 2000 - In 1998 the Council regulation n° 577/1998 was adopted and replaced the previous one to take into account new statistical requirements. The methodological basis and the contents of this new series of surveys are described in the publication LFS - Methods and Definitions - 1998.
• 2000 - LFS covers all 27 Member States.
• 2002 - Regulation 1991/2002 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 October 2002 amending Council Regulation (EC) No 577/98 on the organisation of a labour force sample survey in the Community introduced a deadline (end of 2002) for the period of transition given to the Member States to introduce a continuous quarterly survey (derogation periods for Cyprus until the end of 2004 and Germany until the end of 2005).
• 2006 A list of variables, referred to as 'structural variables', is identified from among the survey characteristics. They need to be surveyed only as annual averages with reference to 52 weeks rather than as quarterly averages.

 

 

Council Regulation (EEC) No 577/98 stipulates the agreements reached by the Member States and Eurostat on the implementation of the survey. The technical aspects of the survey are discussed by Eurostat and representatives of the national statistical offices and employment ministries that meet regularly at the Employment Statistics Working Group held in Luxembourg. This Working Group determines the content of the survey, the EU list of variables and the common coding of individual response categories, as well as the principal definitions to be applied for the analyses of the results.

 

The national statistical institutes are responsible for selecting the sample, preparing the questionnaires, conducting the direct interviews among households, and forwarding the results to Eurostat in accordance with the common coding scheme. The questionnaires are drawn up by each Member State in the national language or languages, taking into account the stipulations made in the Regulation. For every survey characteristic listed in the Regulation, a question or series of questions exists in each questionnaire to permit this information to be supplied. There are thirty-one Labour Force Surveys conducted by the National Statistical Institutes across Europe and collected and disseminated by Eurostat. Those national LFS

• Use the same concepts and definitions,
• Follow the International Labour Organisation guidelines,
• Use common classifications: NACE, ISCO-88(Com), ISCED, NUTS,
• Record the same set of characteristics in each country.

 

In 2006, the LFS sample size across the EU was about 1.8 million individuals. The sampling rates vary between 0.2% and 3.3%.

 

Reference period The EU LFS measures the labour status and other characteristics during a reference week. From 2003, the sample units are distributed uniformly over the quarter so that the quarterly estimates are equivalent to an average week in the quarter (except in IT, CY and AT: from 2004, and DE from 2005). The reference week starts on Monday and concludes on Sunday. The first week of the year/quarter is the week including the first Thursday of the year/quarter. Each quarter has 13 weeks.

 

Techniques of data collection

 

The data is acquired by interviewing the sampled individuals directly. Proxy interviews are allowed through a responsible person in the household. In most countries at least the first wave interview is conducted in person while subsequent follow-up interviews can be conducted via telephone. Participation in the survey is compulsory in BE, DE, EL, ES, FR, IT, CY, MT, AT, PT and NO.

 

Part (but not all) of the data can be supplied by equivalent information from alternative sources, including administrative registers, provided the data obtained are of equivalent quality. Typically, the Nordic countries supply the demographic information directly from the population registers.

 

Sample designs

 

The EU LFS is a rotating random sample survey of persons in private households. The sampling units are dwellings, households or individuals depending on the sampling frame.

 

The sample design and rotation patterns are not fully harmonised. Different schemes are used to sample the units ranging from simple random sampling to complex stratified multi-stage sampling methods of clusters. Most countries use a variant of a two-stage stratified random sampling of households. All of the Member States apply a rotating pattern so that part of the observations can be directly paired to the observations one survey instance earlier. These rotating patterns range from 2-() (participating 2 quarters consecutively before leaving the sample) through 2-(2)-2 (2 quarters then skipped for 2 quarters and finally participating for another 2 quarters) to 8-().