 |
||
Australian Bureau of Statistics
|  |
|
|
6105.0 - Australian Labour Market Statistics, July 2011
Previous ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 05/07/2011 |
Page tools:
 Print Page
 Print All
 RSS
 Search this Product
| ||||
LABOUR HOUSEHOLD SURVEY CONTENT REVIEW: PROPOSED DEVELOPMENTS
There are also other sub-topics which are included within the topics identified above (e.g. detailed benefits module collected and published six-yearly within the Employee Earnings, Benefits and Trade Union Membership survey; Labour Hire module collected and published three-yearly within the Forms of Employment Survey). The following labour topics are included within the labour MPHS program (collected on a financial year basis):
The review This review aims to make improvements to the labour household survey program to ensure:
This review is primarily focussed on the content of the labour supplementary surveys (and to a lesser extent the MPHS topics), including the inter-relationships between the topics, and their timing and frequency. Consideration is also being given to the current content of the core monthly and quarterly LFS: the extent to which it continues to provide key contemporary labour market indicators, considering emerging priorities; and the relationships between content of the LFS and the supplementary survey and the MPHS topics. This is to ensure that any revised program is based on a holistic ‘labour household survey information set’ perspective, rather than being constrained on the basis of the existing content of current surveys. Proposed directions for the labour household survey program A number of potential changes have been identified for the core (monthly and quarterly) LFS, the labour supplementary surveys, and the labour MPHS. These proposed changes are discussed below. It should be noted that these are only proposals at this stage. No decisions have been made as to which, if any, proposals will be implemented, nor has any testing been undertaken to assess the feasibility. Labour Force Survey A number of developments are being explored in relation to the content of the core (monthly and quarterly) LFS which may improve conceptual robustness and relevance, improve the frequency/timeliness of key data, or enable critical linkages that are not currently possible. The proposed changes include:
The improvements described above will result in a slightly expanded monthly and quarterly Labour Force Survey content. Any enhancements in this area will need to be fully offset by the proposed streamlined labour supplementary surveys content. Labour Supplementary Surveys Labour supplementary surveys are currently conducted across 5 months of the year – February, July, August, September and November. There are also a number of other non-labour topics run as supplementary surveys in other months (shaded in figure 1 below). Figure 1 shows the current labour supplementary survey program. In summary:
With the potential changes to the core monthly and quarterly LFS (outlined above) as a starting point, and taking into consideration the current overlaps/linkages in survey content, the following changes to the overall labour supplementary survey program are proposed:
Figure 2 illustrates the changes/movement of surveys as discussed above. These changes would result in the labour supplementary survey program including two labour supplementary surveys per year instead of the current five - run in February and August, with labour supplementary surveys no longer collected in July, September and November. Figure 3 shows the proposed new program. The February labour supplementary survey would contain question modules related to participation, job search and mobility, underemployment, and underutilisation. Due to the large amount of relevant content, the August supplementary surveys would likely comprise a core annual component, comprising around 75% of the overall content, with the remaining content included every two years on a rotating basis. The core component would contain question modules on characteristics of employment, such as earnings, employment arrangements, job flexibility and trade union membership. The first of the two biennial modules would contain more detailed questions on earnings and trade union membership, and questions around labour hire and locations of work. The second of the two biennial modules would contain question modules on independent contracting, and more detailed questions on employment arrangements and job flexibility, and questions around job stability and scheduling. Further details on the possible data items to be included in these modules are available on request. At this stage, the list of possible data items is only indicative, and the content may need to be further refined. The final content will be subject to testing and a statistical impact study to ensure that the size of the modules will not have an adverse impact on respondents or on LFS estimates. Advantages of the proposed supplementary survey program The February supplementary survey would provide a single survey/dataset which explores the key issues around unemployment and underemployment, participation, job change and job search - currently, the PNILF, UEW and JSE surveys all collect some information relating to participation or increasing participation (e.g. for people looking for work/looking for more work, steps taken to find work/more work, reasons not looking for work/not looking for more work), while the JSE and Labour Mobility surveys both collect information relating to jobs started in the last year. The August supplementary survey would provide a single survey/dataset which describes the key elements of people's employment - currently, the EEBTUM Survey, FOES, and WTA Survey all collect information describing people’s employment, but each only provide part of the picture in understanding the nature of people’s employment and related outcomes, e.g. relating earnings and working arrangements. Reducing the labour supplementary survey program from five surveys to two would also free up space for other surveys to be run, e.g. to respond to emerging labour or social issues. Labour Multi-Purpose Household Surveys As outlined above, there are currently three labour-related topics included in the MPHS program:
It is proposed to continue to collect these topics in the MPHS, and at the current frequency. However, the following changes are proposed:
The increase in frequency of the ‘Incentives module’, and the increase in scope of the Barriers and Incentives survey would likely result in a slight reduction in content. Investigations of the impact, and resulting content would be progressed in the development of the next survey. Issues for consideration Feedback is sought on the proposed changes to the labour household survey program, including:
Submissions to the review can be emailed to <labour.statistics@abs.gov.au>. For more information on the review, please contact Michael Gerrity on (02) 6252 5514 or email <m.gerrity@abs.gov.au>.
This page last updated 7 October 2011
|
||||
Unless otherwise noted, content on this website is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Australia Licence together with any terms, conditions and exclusions as set out in the website Copyright notice. For permission to do anything beyond the scope of this licence and copyright terms contact us.
