Labour Force Survey LFS and Labour Market Statistics LMS

1
Labour Force Survey (LFS) and Labour Market
Statistics (LMS)
Adrian Jones - Deputy Director Regional and
Economic Analysis Division
2
What is this session about

• An introduction to ONSs LFS and Annual
  Population Survey as sources of regional and
  local labour market data
• To increase your knowledge of the Labour Force
  Survey how to use it and how it relates to
  other Labour Market Statistics

3
Agenda

• Labour Market Framework and its sources
• Accessing the LFS/APS Products
• LFS survey design and processing
• Weighting
• Strengths, Limitation and Sampling variability
• Changes

4
Key customers

• Bank of England
• Treasury and other Government Departments
• European organisations (ILO, OECD, Eurostat)
• Local Government health authorities
• RDAs, GO, Trade bodies
• Members of Parliament (PQs)
• The media
• Researchers/academics
• Private companies

5
Labour Market Framework

• On the supply side of the labour market we have
  people who supply their labour
• They can be
• employed
• unemployed
• economically inactive (potential supply)
• On the demand side we have employers who need
  people to fill their jobs

6
Basic framework structure

• Labour Supply Working age employment rate
• Activity rate
• Inactivity rate
• Unemployment rate
• Benefit claimants Claimant count rate
• Incapacity benefit rate
• Other benefits rates
• Total working age benefit rate
• Labour Demand Jobs/jobs density
• Vacancies/vacancies density

7
Sources for filling the framework

• Labour Supply
• Labour Force Survey
• Annual Population Survey
• Modelled unemployment estimates
• Population census

8
Labour Force Survey

• Quarterly Survey
• Use the quarterly LFS for labour supply estimates
  nationally and regionally (GORs)
• But also need a way of using LFS data for smaller
  areas if we are to have a local area Framework
  for LMS

9
Annual Population Survey

• Annual version of LFS
• Includes responses from everyone who responded
  to the quarterly LFS in a year (but only one
  record per respondent)
• Plus sample boosts respondents not included
  in the quarterly LFS

10
Model-based unemployment estimates

• Even with boosted annual LFS can publish
  reliable unemployment data for only about 1/4
  of local authorities
• Developed a model which uses annual LFS data and
  a (very accurate) covariate the claimant count
• The model produces estimates of unemployment
  levels and rates for local authorities

11
Sources for filling the framework

• Labour Demand
• Workforce Jobs
• Annual Business Inquiry
• Jobs Densities
• Vacancies

12
Workforce Jobs
Estimates of jobs based on a number of sources
STES LFS DASA Admin sources govt trainees/
Public Sector ABI (for benchmarking) Estimates
published for Regions
13
Annual Business Inquiry (ABI)
Annual Survey of Employers Provides estimates
of numbers of employees for detailed industrial
and geographical breakdowns (though sample unit
is the reporting unit not the local unit)

14
Jobs Density

• Total jobs in an area divided by the resident
  working age population
• Numerator similar to WFJ, but estimated annually
  rather than quarterly
• Available for small areas (local authorities,
  parliamentary constituencies)

15
Vacancies

• Two sources for vacancies data
• Vacancies survey
• Jobcentre vacancies
• Vacancy survey provides good estimates but only
  nationally
• Jobcentre vacancies available for small areas,
  but administrative data and problems with using
  them as statistical data

16
Benefits Data

• Dont fit into either labour supply or labour
  demand but are relevant to the labour market
• Main benefit of interest is Jobseekers Allowance
  a benefit associated with unemployment (though
  NOT a measure of unemployment)
• Other relevant benefits are those associated with
  economic inactivity, for example incapacity
  benefit and disability living allowance

17
Recap

• Labour Supply Working age employment rate
• Activity rate
• Inactivity rate
• Unemployment rate
• Benefit claimants Claimant count rate
• Incapacity benefit rate
• Other benefits rates
• Total working age benefit rate
• Labour Demand Jobs/jobs density
• Vacancies/vacancies density

18
Accessing Labour Market Statistics

• National First Release
• Eleven country and regional First Releases
  published Quarterly
• on paper and as pdf on National Statistics
  web site
• data also available from NS web site (excel
  file)
• Local area data also published quarterly on NS
  web site (Local labour markets statistical
  indicators)
• downloadable pdf and excel spreadsheets

19
Labour Market Statistics Integrated First Release
20
Regional Releases
21
Periodicity Rolling months and publication
dates
Levels and change
22
Regional Releases
23
Seasonal Adjustment
24
Regional Releases
25
Confidence intervals interpretation
26
APS based tables
27
Accessing Labour Market Statistics

• Nomis
• Data stored in databases which can be
  interrogated in many dimensions
• time
• geography
• variable, etc.
• Can download just the cells of interest not
  necessary to download a whole spreadsheet

28
Nomis
http//www.nomisweb.co.uk/reports/lmp/la/contents.
aspx
29
Access to LFS/APS data

• NS website SA/ONS
• Printed publications ELMR, Regional Trends
• NOMIS
• Neighbourhood Statistics Developments, profiles
  and training
• Ad hoc analysis of LFS databases
• Data Archive
• LFS Dataservice

30
LFS databases

• Quarterly databases
• for each seasonal quarter from spring 1992 to
  date
• Longitudinal databases
• Link data from individual respondents
  consecutive interviews
• Mainly used to analyse numbers of individuals
  moving between employment, unemployment and
  inactivity
• Household databases
• Used for analyses at family unit or household
  level
• (eg. workless households lone parent families)
• Experimental APS household databases

31
Unit level data

• Eurostat Regulations
• Member states are required to conduct an LFS
• Two-thirds of LFS is for Eurostat

32
History of LFS

• Great Britain
• 1973 - 1983 (biennial)
• 1984 - 1991 (annual)
• 1992 - present (quarterly)
• Northern Ireland
• 1973 - 1983 (biennial)
• 1983 - 1994 (annual)
• 1994 - present (quarterly)

33
Enhancements- ALALFS (2001 to 2003) and APS

• England ELLFS(sponsored DWP/DfES)
• Spring 2000 (annual) 875 per LEA (450 London
  Borough)
• Wales WLLFS(sponsored NAW)
• Spring 2001 (annual)
• Scotland SLLFS(sponsored SE)
• Spring 2003 (annual)
• APS boost (ONS) -2004 to 2005 (875 UALAD)
• APS datasets rolling basis 2004 onwards

34
LFS Survey Design - The Sample

• 57,000 UK households every quarter
• 55,000 from GB
• 2,000 from NI
• 135,000 individuals every quarter

35
Survey Design Communal Establishments

• LFS estimates relate almost exclusively to the
  population living in private households (97 of
  population).
• Missing 81,000 employed and 8,600 unemployed
• Most people living in communal establishments are
  excluded
• Exception of NHS accommodation
• And students in halls of residence

36
What are communal establishments
37
Survey Design How is the LFS Representative?

• Stratified sample (whole of UK sampled)
• Random selection within stratified areas
• Distributed between 13 stints in each area in
  each quarter
• Random sample
• systematic sample of postcodes with random start
• Postcode Address File
• NHS Sampling Frame
• Telephone Directory/North of the Caledonian canal
• Weighting of data
• Helps correct for non response

38
Wave structure An Addresss Passage in the LFS

• Drawn in the sample
• Receive a letter informing them they have been
  selected
• 1st interview
• 2nd interview (3 months later)
• 3rd interview (3 months later)
• etc

39
Wave structure of the LFS
Households are interviewed in five successive
quarters
40
Fieldwork Interviewing Face-to-Face

• Almost all wave 1 interviews are Face-to Face
• LFS has 250 field interviewers

41
Fieldwork Interviewing - Telephone

• Generally waves 2-5 are all done by telephone
• Scotland North of Caledonian Canal
• 300 Interviewers
• Titchfield

42
Fieldwork Proxy Interviews

• Not always possible to interview everyone in the
  household
• In these cases the LFS interviewer will collect
  some information about these individuals from
  another adult person in the household.
• Approximately 30 of LFS data is collected in
  this way.

43
Fieldwork The LFS Questionnaire
44
Fieldwork Blaise
45
Data Validation

• Most data checking takes place during the
  interview because of checks built into the
  questionnaire (for example income checks)
• Other checks take place in the office

46
Derived variables

• Derived variables combine answers to two or more
  questions.
• eg. the variable WORKAGE combines AGE and SEX
  to obtain the working age population (men aged
  16-64 and women aged 16-59).
• e.g. ILO unemployment estimates are derived from
  questions on
• whether worked in previous week
• whether had a job they were on holiday from
• whether looked for work in previous 4 weeks
• whether available to start work in next 2 weeks
• whether waiting to take up a job

47
ILO employment status
Population aged 16
Economically active
Economically inactive
Wants a job
Does not want a job
Employed
Unemployed
Not seeking
Not available
Government supported training
Self - employed
Unpaid family workers
Employees
Why?
Why?
48
Employment (LFS)

• Aged 16 or over
• at least one hours paid work in a week
• temporarily away from a job
• unpaid work for a family business
• Government-supported training programmes

49
Economic inactivity

• neither employed nor unemployed
• dont want a job
• want a job but arent looking
• want a job but not available to start

50
Weighting
51
Weighting up to the population
52
Weighting
53
Weighting

• LFS weighting is a 3 stage process.
• Multi-stage weighting
• at local area level
• by age sex (single age, national data)
• by region, age sex.
• Population is split into subgroups (cells) by
  region, age and sex.
• Weight for each cell population in the subgroup
  divided by sample size in the subgroup.

54
(No Transcript)
55
(No Transcript)
56
Strengths

• Large sample size
• Comprehensive
• Meets international standards
• Timeliness (monthly estimates of key economic
  indicators)
• Response rate (about 70 wave 1)

57
Limitations

• Coverage (most communal establishments not
  included)
• Sampling variability
• LFS weighting (uses population estimates)
• Discontinuities
• Self-classification (Industry an issue)
• Proxy responses (Qualifications, income etc)

58
Sample errors Quarterly LFS
59
Averaging over quarters
60
APS - More Complex survey

• Guidance in user guides 1 and 6
• Design effect
• People in different areas do not have even
  probability of being in survey
• The bigger the sampling fraction the more
  reliable the estimate
• Clustering
• Collecting via household but, measuring
  individuals

61
Thresholds

• Thresholds crude assumption of common design
  effect (cv20 and effect of 1)
• Qtr LFS 10,000
• LADB 2,000 and 6,000
• APS 2,000 4,000 and 6,000 per LAD
• Variables affected by clustering
• Eg Ethnicity has a multiplier for the thresholds
  of 2.5 for England

62
Changes to come - Re-weighting

• Population estimates and projections are used to
  weight the survey results.
• Re-weighting is the process of moving from one
  set of population data to more up to date
  population data.
• The last re-weighting exercises were in April
  2000, April 2002 and February 2003 .
• The 2003 re-weighting is based on the 2001 Census
  results.
• Microdata on 2001 levels and projections
• Aggregates interim reweighted to latest

63
Changes to come - IHS

• Full implementation of the survey is expected to
  be completed in 2009 by when a new survey module
  will have replaced the Labour Force Survey

64
Changes to come- IHS
65
(No Transcript)
66
(No Transcript)
67
Links to sources

• Regional First Releases
• http//nswebcopy/onlineproducts/lms_regional.asp
• Nomis
• http//www.nomisweb.co.uk/reports/lmp/la/contents.
  aspx
• Neighbourhood Statistics
• http//neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/disseminati
  on/
• Guide to LMS
• http//www.statistics.gov.uk/about/data/guides/Lab
  ourMarket/
• User Guides
• http//www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/Product.asp?
  vlnk1537