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THE EUROPEAN UNION LABOUR FORCE SURVEY
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IMPORTANT REMARKS ON THE DOMAIN LFS detailed tables on EUROSTAT WEBSITE: Last update: 07/11/2012
For the main changes introduced in the domain 'LFS detailed tables' on 16/03/2007, please click here From 2005 data, EU totals are based on the available country data for a given quarter/year. Until 2004 data, EU totals are only possible for quarter 2 (based on one quarter in spring :quarter
2 for most of countries, on quarter 1 data for ------------------------------------- The
annual data for 2005 have been
slightly revised on the 13/06/2008. Please contact us for more information if
needed. For
2005 annual data are based on a
specific sample for Between
2003 and 2006, the survey in -------------------------------------- The
annual detailed tables' domain is based on annual averages of quarterly data
except for the tables in % (all except activity, employment, unemployment and
inactivity rates). The latest data for these tables are often published with
a short delay compared to annual averages since they are based on a different
sample in certain countries. The
symbol :u refers to either data not reliable due to
small sample size or to rates not reliable due no answers representing more
than 30% of the reference population. Data
flagged ~u lack reliability either due to small sample size or, for rates,
due to no answers representing between 10% and 30% of the reference
population. |
1. BASIC CONCEPTS AND DEFINITIONS
The methodology used follows mainly the Recommendation of
the 13th International Conference of Labour Statisticians, convened in 1982
by the International Labour Organisation. This section gives the definitions
of labour status, employment and unemployment as well as the main
socio-economic dimensions used in the EU LFS. 2.
DEVELOPMENTS
AND ORGANISATION OF THE EU LFS
This section provides the main facts
on the historical evolution of the EU LFS and cooperation between Eurostat and
national statistical institutes in the organisation of the survey. It also
describes the characteristics of the EU LFS, the designs of national surveys
and techniques of data collection. 3. COMPARABILITY
OF RESULTS, BREAKS IN SERIES AND COHERENCE WITH OTHER STATISTICS This section covers the issues related to the
comparability of results between the countries and between the successive
surveys. It presents the overview of the main breaks in series resulting from
the transition to the continuous survey, census revisions and implementation
of new concepts. The divergences in the population coverage and the coverage
of active population are also covered.
4.
EU LFS PUBLISHING GUIDELINES
Eurostat implements basic guidelines intended to avoid publication of figures which are statistically unreliable or which risk to allow identification of individual respondents. Therefore two types of restrictions exist, namely for reliability and for confidentiality reasons. Regarding
confidentiality restrictions, Eurostat does not disseminate EU-LFS estimates
based on 3 or less reporting units. As an indicative rule of thumb, this
typically corresponds to population estimates of some 200-400 persons or
less. This restriction is mainly relevant for EU-LFS data tailored for
specific requests. In those cases the user will receive a data file with the
corresponding entry flagged 'c' and the value blanked. These entries will
still be visible and thus indicate that some values below confidentiality
limits have been removed. Regarding
reliability restrictions, Eurostat flags estimates below certain limits as
'a' and 'b'. Those reliability limits depend on the sample size and design in
the individual Member States. This applies to quarterly
data , annual averages
, yearly data and
ad
hoc modules results. The complete list of reliability limits from 1983
until now is included in this csv file. Figures flagged 'a' should not be
published; by convention, a dot or full stop is used instead. Figures flagged
'b', whenever applicable, can be published with a warning concerning their
limited reliability. By convention, they are published in brackets. From
2006 onwards, the EU-LFS can provide three types of results according to the
sample used: quarterly data, annual average of quarterly data or yearly data.
The latter corresponds to the best sample available for all variables for a
given country and year. It corresponds either to one single quarter
(generally quarter 2), the average of quarterly data or to a sub-sample
distributed along the year (with sample size in general roughly equivalent to
one reference quarter). LFS
results may be disseminated in the form of csv-files.
These can sometimes be large and collide with size restrictions applicable in
software used to process the LFS results. For these cases, a small tool for
splitting large csv-files is available here. 5. EU
LFS REGULATION
The survey is
based on European legislation since 1973. The principal legal act is the Council Regulation (EC) No. 577/98
that stipulates
the provisions on design, survey characteristics and decision making
processes. The implementation rules are specified in the successive
Commission regulations. 6. EU
LFS PUBLICATIONS and OTHER DOCUMENTS
This section gives an overview of available
publications containing description of the European Union Labour
Force Survey on: Methods and definitions, 7.
STATISTICAL
CLASSIFICATIONS USED IN THE EU LFS
The EU-LFS is based on international classifications
(NACE for economic activity, ISCO for occupation, ISCED for education and
NUTS for regional data). This section gives the details about classification
used, the levels of aggregation as well as transition rules in cases a particular
classification was changed/modified.. 8. DISSEMINATION
STRUCTURE - EMPLOYMENT AND UNEMPLOYMENT DOMAIN
This section briefly presents the main components of the dissemination of the LFS data: LFS Main Indicators, LFS - detailed quarterly survey results, LFS - detailed annual survey results and LFS specific topics. 9. DATABASE DESCRIPTION · Core variables
( User guide ) Annex
Explanatory notes PDF version · Core
variables (User guide ) HTML
version 2008 (not yet updated to 2009+ codification) ·
Overview
of EU LFS coding lists, explanatory notes and classifications 10. NATIONAL QUESTIONNAIRES ·
Ad-Hoc Modules Questionnaires |