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Key changes made to Employee Earnings, Benefits and Trade Union Membership Survey (EEBTUM) include:

REVISION OF POPULATION BENCHMARKS

The Labour Force Survey estimates, and estimates from the supplementary surveys, are calculated in such a way as to sum to independent estimates of the civilian population aged 15 years and over (population benchmarks). These population benchmarks are based on Estimated Resident Population (ERP) data. Generally, revisions are made to population benchmarks for the LFS following the final rebasing of population estimates to the latest five yearly Census of Population and Housing, or when the need arises.

From February 2009 Labour Force Survey estimates have been compiled during population benchmarks based on the 2006 Census of Population and Housing. Revisions were applied to the LFS population benchmarks in July 2010 and November 2012 issues to take into account the latest available population estimates. The latest revision presented in the November 2012 issue is reflected in the estimates presented in EEBTUM.

Changes to the LFS population benchmarks impact primarily on the magnitude of the Labour Force Survey estimates (i.e. employment and unemployment) that are directly related to the underlying size of the population. For more details on population benchmarks, see the Explanatory Notes in Labour Force, Australia (cat. no. 6202.0) and for details about the revisions made, see the article in the November 2012 issue of Labour Force, Australia (cat. no. 6202.0) and the article in the September 2010 issue of Labour Force, Australia (cat. no. 6202.0).


IMPUTATION

Where information relating to earnings in main job and second job has not been provided by the respondent, values have been imputed. In August 2012, there were 3,422 cases where information relating to earnings in main job was not provided by the respondent, and 109 cases where information relating to earnings in second job was not provided by the respondent. Where this was the only information missing from the respondent record, the value was imputed based on answers provided from another respondent with similar characteristics (referred to as the "donor"). Donor records were selected for imputation of earnings in main job by matching information on sex, age, state or territory of usual residence and selected labour force characteristics (full-time or part-time in main job, industry, occupation, hours worked in main job, owner manager status) of the person with missing information.

Donor records were selected for imputation of earnings in second job by matching information on age, state or territory of usual residence, area of usual residence and owner manager status. Depending on which values were imputed, donors were chosen from the pool of individual records with complete information for the block of questions where the information was missing.

In 2004, imputation was conducted for main job earnings only. Prior to 2004, imputation was not used, hence employees whose weekly earnings could not be determined were excluded from estimates of mean and median weekly earnings.

Further changes to the imputation process include:

• From 2009, additional information relating to the number of hours that a respondent's last pay period covered in their main job was added to the imputation process.
• Aside from the change in 2009, the current imputation method has been used since the 2005 survey. A similar method of imputation was used for the 2004 survey. The differences between the 2004 and the current imputation method are that donors are matched, where possible at a finer level of detail; and second job earnings are imputed whereas in 2004 they were not.
• These changes in methodology were designed to improve the imputed earnings data at the unit record level, but have little impact on aggregate estimates.
• Prior to 2004, imputation was not used. Employees whose weekly earnings could not be determined were excluded from estimates of mean or median weekly earnings. Care should be taken when comparing earnings data from 2004 onwards with earnings data prior to 2004. To compare the change in methodology from 2003 to 2004 see paragraph 28 of the Explanatory Notes in Employee Earnings, Benefits and Trade Union Membership, August 2004 (cat. no. 6310.0).

The data item - 'Country of birth and year of arrival' range has been updated to 'Arrived 2001-2010 and arrived 2011 to survey date'.


OTHER CHANGES TO EMPLOYEE EARNINGS, BENEFITS AND TRADE UNION MEMBERSHIP INCLUDE:

In 2011:

Table 12 presented in the 2010 publication has been split into two tables, becoming Table 12 and Table 13 in 2011. Additional information is presented on weekly earnings in percentiles and deciles in tables 2, 7, 8 and 9.

In 2010:

The 2009 Employee Benefits module that captured information on employment benefits received in the last 12 months was not collected in 2010. The following data items are not presented as a result:

• 'Number of weeks of paid leave entitled to';
• 'Whether able to accrue paid holiday leave';
• 'Number of weeks of paid maternity/paternity leave';
• 'Whether taken paid study leave in the last 12 months';
• 'Whether earnings varied from one pay period to the next';
• 'Whether usually works paid or unpaid extra hours or overtime';
• 'Whether most recent period of extra hours or overtime was paid, unpaid or both';
• 'Whether guaranteed a minimum number of hours of work';8
• 'Type of employment benefit received';
• 'Salary sacrifice arrangements in the last pay period';
• 'Level of highest educational attainment';
• 'Level of highest non-school qualification'; and
• 'Highest year of school completed'.

The data item 'Future employment expectations' presented in the 2009 publication was replaced with 'Expected future duration with current employer/business' and 'Reason expected duration with current employer/business less than 12 months' in 2010.

In 2009:

From 2009, the survey included people in very remote areas of Australia except for people living in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in very remote parts of Australia.

The Employee Benefits module of the EEBTUM survey was redeveloped to better capture information on current employment benefits received in the last 12 months, including transport to and from work, communication and/or IT devices and child care, as well as salary sacrifice arrangements.

Additional information, relating to the number of hours that a respondent's last pay period covered in their main job, was used in the imputation process.

A new population, 'Employees who were trade union members' was included. This population provides information about employees who were members of a trade union, not necessarily in connection with their main job.

In 2007:

As a result of a change in the concept of earnings being measured, employees were asked to include salary sacrifice when estimating their earnings in their main job, and for multiple jobholders, in their second job. In previous years, there was not any explicit reference to the treatment of salary sacrifice, yet it is probable that some employees were already including amounts of salary sacrifice in their estimates of earnings, depending on how their pay was reported. As a result of this change there has been a break in series.

There was a change to the data item 'Whether considered main job to be casual'. From 2007, all employees (excluding OMIEs) were asked if they were employed as a casual. In 2006 and previous years, OMIEs and employees who received both paid sick and paid holiday leave were not asked if they were employed as a casual. This resulted in a break in series. Users need to exercise care when comparing the number of people who considered their job to be casual with data prior to August 2007.

'Full-time or part-time employees in main job' was derived from a self perception question in which all employees were asked 'Is your job full-time or part-time?'. Following the redesign in 2001 of the LFS questionnaire, actual hours worked in main job in the reference week is now collected. From August 2002, data on hours worked in main job are now used to derive full-time or part-time status of employees in main job. This approach is consistent with the method used in the LFS to derive full-time or part-time status in all jobs. For further details see Glossary entries 'Full-time employees in main job' and 'Full-time workers' in the Employee Earnings, Benefits and Trade Union Membership publication.