Persons Employed at Home

NAME OF ORGANISATION
Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)

OVERVIEW

The Persons Employed at Home survey presents information on employees who work at home. Information on the number and characteristics of employees engaged in home-based work in collected. Structural change in the economy, changes to industrial relations practices and rapid technological change suggest that the incidence and variety of home-based employment are increasing.

PURPOSE

The survey monitors trends in work away from the employer's location and examines issues such as use of technology and conditions of employment.

SCOPE

This survey is conducted as part of the Monthly Population Survey, which comprises the Labour Force Survey and, in most months, a supplementary survey topic.

SCOPE - Labour Force Survey

The Labour Force Survey includes all persons aged 15 and over except:

• members of the permanent defence forces;
• certain diplomatic personnel of overseas governments, customarily excluded from census and estimated populations;
• overseas residents in Australia; and
• members of non-Australian defence forces (and their dependants) stationed in Australia.

From July 1993 Jervis Bay Territory is also excluded from the scope of the survey. Before July 1993 it was included in estimates for the Australian Capital Territory.

SCOPE - Persons Employed at Home

The scope for this survey was the same as that used for the Labour Force Survey except that it was restricted to employed persons. Students at boarding school, some patients in hospitals and sanatoriums and inmates of reformatories, gaols, etc. were also excluded.

From July 1997, all supplementary surveys excluded persons in remote and sparsely settled areas of Australia. The exclusion of these persons has only a minor effect on estimates for individual States or Territories.

COVERAGE - Labour Force Survey

In the Labour Force Survey, coverage rules are applied which aim to ensure that each person is associated with only one dwelling, and hence has only one chance of selection. The chance of a person being enumerated at two separate dwellings in the one survey is considered to be negligible.

Persons who are away from their usual residence for six weeks or less at the time of interview are enumerated at their usual residence (relevant information may be obtained from other usual residents present at the time of the survey).

DATA DETAIL

Conceptual framework

This survey provides details of employment conditions for those employees who work more hours from home than the employer's workplace in either their main or second job.

Persons employed at home includes persons who usually work more hours at home than elsewhere in the main or second job. Farmers, farm managers and farm hands and assistants, unpaid voluntary workers and persons who worked less than one hour per week were excluded.

Main outputs

Main findings from the survey, including tables and analysis are released in publication format and include the following:

EMPLOYED PERSONS

Whether employed at home, time series

Selected characteristics, time series

Whether employed at home by age

Whether employed at home by relationship in household

PERSONS EMPLOYED AT HOME

Summary of characteristics and relationship in household

Main reason began working at home, industry, occupation and birthplace

Whether all hours usually worked at home and whether job at home was main job and number of hours usually worked at home

EMPLOYEES EMPLOYED AT HOME

Summary of working conditions and industry

Classifications

Demographics: State, Area, Region, Sex, Marital Status, Relationship in Household, Period of Arrival and Age.

Country of Birth: The Standard Australian Classification of Countries (SACC).

Occupation: Australian Standard Classification of Occupations Second Edition (ASCO).

Industry: Australia and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification (ANZSIC).

Other concepts (summary)

Not applicable

GEOGRAPHIC DETAIL
1. National & State/Territory\1.01 Australia
1. National & State/Territory\1.02 All States & Territories
2. Parts of State\2.12 Other Geographic Areas\2.12.03 Part of State Metropolitan
2. Parts of State\2.12 Other Geographic Areas\2.12.04 Part of State-Extra Metropolitan

Comments and/or Other Regions

Not all data available for all areas.

COLLECTION FREQUENCY
Adhoc

Frequency comments

The survey was conducted in April 1989, March 1992 and September 1995. Similar data is now collected as part of the Locations of Work Survey (ABS Cat. No. 6275.0).

COLLECTION HISTORY

Previous surveys on this topic were conducted in April 1989 and March 1992

DATA AVAILABILITY
Yes

Data availability comments