Quarterly Labour Force Survey, August - October, 2021

<p><strong>Background</strong><br>The <em>Labour Force Survey</em> (LFS) is a unique source of information using international definitions of employment and unemployment and economic inactivity, together with a wide range of related topics such as occupation, training, hours of work and personal characteristics of household members aged 16 years and over. It is used to inform social, economic and employment policy. The Annual Population Survey, also held at the UK Data Archive, is derived from the LFS.</p> <p>The LFS was first conducted biennially from 1973, then between 1984 and 1991 the survey was carried out annually and consisted of a quarterly survey conducted throughout the year and a 'boost' survey in the spring quarter (data were then collected seasonally). From 1992 quarterly data were made available, with a quarterly sample size approximately equivalent to that of the previous annual data. The survey then became known as the <em>Quarterly Labour Force Survey</em> (QLFS). From December 1994, data gathering for Northern Ireland moved to a full quarterly cycle to match the rest of the country, so the QLFS then covered the whole of the UK (though some additional annual Northern Ireland LFS datasets are also available). Further information on the background to the QLFS may be found in the documentation.<br><br><strong>LFS Documentation</strong><br>The documentation available from the Archive to accompany LFS datasets largely consists of the latest version of each user guide volume alongside the appropriate questionnaire for the year concerned. However, volumes are updated periodically by ONS, so users are advised to check the latest documents on the ONS <a title="Labour Force Survey - User Guidance" href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/methodologies/labourforcesurveyuserguidance">Labour Force Survey - User Guidance</a> pages before commencing analysis.<strong>This is especially important for users of older QLFS studies, where information and guidance in the user guide documents may have changed over time.<br></strong><br><span style="font-weight: bold;">New reweighting policy</span><br>Following the <a href="http://doc.ukdataservice.ac.uk/doc/8343/mrdoc/pdf/biennial_lfs_aps_reweighting_policy.pdf" target="_blank">new reweighting policy</a><a href="http://doc.ukdataservice.ac.uk/doc/8343/mrdoc/pdf/biennial_lfs_aps_reweighting_policy.pdf" target="_blank"></a> ONS has reviewed the latest population estimates made available during 2019 and have decided not to carry out a 2019 LFS and APS reweighting exercise. Therefore, the next reweighting exercise will take place in 2020. These will incorporate the 2019 Sub-National Population Projection data (published in May 2020) and 2019 Mid-Year Estimates (published in June 2020). It is expected that reweighted Labour Market aggregates and microdata will be published towards the end of 2020/early 2021.<br><br><strong>Additional data derived from the QLFS</strong><br>The Archive also holds further QLFS series: Secure Access datasets (see below); household datasets; two-quarter and five-quarter longitudinal datasets; quarterly, annual and ad hoc module datasets compiled for Eurostat; and some additional annual Northern Ireland datasets.<br><br><strong>End User Licence and Secure Access QLFS data</strong><br>Users should note that there are two discrete versions of the QLFS. One is available under the standard End User Licence (EUL) agreement, and the other is a Secure Access version. The EUL version includes country and Government Office Region geography, 3-digit Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) and 3-digit industry group for main, second and last job (from July-September 2015, 4-digit industry class is available for main job only).<br><br>The Secure Access version contains more detailed variables relating to:</p> <ul> <li>age: single year of age, year and month of birth, age completed full-time education and age obtained highest qualification, age of oldest dependent child and age of youngest dependent child</li> <li>family unit and household: including a number of variables concerning the number of dependent children in the family according to their ages, relationship to head of household and relationship to head of family</li> <li>nationality and country of origin</li> <li>finer detail geography: including county, unitary/local authority, place of work, Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics 2 (NUTS2) and NUTS3 regions, and whether lives and works in same local authority district, and other categories;</li> <li>health: including main health problem, and current and past health problems</li> <li>education and apprenticeship: including numbers and subjects of various qualifications and variables concerning apprenticeships</li> <li>industry: including industry, industry class and industry group for main, second and last job, and industry made redundant from</li> <li>occupation: including 5-digit industry subclass and 4-digit SOC for main, second and last job and job made redundant from</li> <li>system variables: including week number when interview took place and number of households at address</li> <li>other additional detailed variables may also be included.</li> </ul> <p>The Secure Access datasets (SNs 6727 and 7674) have more restrictive access conditions than those made available under the standard EUL. Prospective users will need to gain ONS Accredited Researcher status, complete an extra application form and demonstrate to the data owners exactly why they need access to the additional variables. Users are strongly advised to first obtain the standard EUL version of the data to see if they are sufficient for their research requirements.<br><br><strong>Changes to Country of Birth and Nationality variables, 2017</strong>:<br>Following a disclosure review in 2016 by the ONS Data Access Team, changes have been made to the LFS Country of Birth and Nationality variables from the July-September 2017 quarter. Four new variables have been created and four variables removed. The new groupings are consistent with those published by the Migration Statistics Unit and so should facilitate users to carry out required analysis of Country of Birth and Nationality. The variables added are: CRYOX7_EUL_Main, CRYOX7_EUL_Sub, NATOX7_EUL_Main and NATOX7_EUL_Sub. The variables removed are: CRYO7, CRYOX7, NATO7 and NATOX7.<br><br><strong>Variables DISEA and LNGLST</strong><br>Dataset A08 (Labour market status of disabled people) which ONS suspended due to an apparent discontinuity between April to June 2017 and July to September 2017 is now available. As a result of this apparent discontinuity and the inconclusive investigations at this stage, comparisons should be made with caution between April to June 2017 and subsequent time periods. However users should note that the estimates are not seasonally adjusted, so some of the change between quarters could be due to seasonality. Further recommendations on historical comparisons of the estimates will be given in November 2018 when ONS are due to publish estimates for July to September 2018. An ONS Methodology section article on <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/methodologies/analysisofthediscontinuityinthelabourforcesurveydisabilitydataapriltojune2017tojulytoseptember2017">Analysis of the discontinuity in the Labour Force Survey disability data: April to June 2017 to July to September 2017</a> has also been published. For any queries about Dataset A08 please email <a href="mailto:[e-mail]">[e-mail]</a></p> <p><strong>ONS methodology reports on the Labour Force Survey, published 2019</strong>:</p> <ul> <li>A report on progress to assess potential bias in the LFS through a comparison against alternative data sources including proxy labour measures from administrative data: <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/methodologies/exploringtheuseofexternaldatatoassessforobservedbiasinlabourforcesurveyestimatesinterimfindings">Exploring the use of external data to assess for observed bias in Labour Force Survey estimates: interim findings</a></li> <li>An update on <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/methodologies/progressagainstthelabourforcesurveynationalstatisticsqualityreviewrecommendations">Progress against the Labour Force Survey National Statistics Quality Review recommendations</a></li></ul><p><strong>LFS response to COVID-19</strong><br>Since April 2020, additional non-calendar quarter LFS microdata have been delivered to Government Departments and the wider research community through the ONS Secure Research Service and UK Data Service. The first additional microdata to be released covered the period February to April 2020, to coincide with Labour Market Statistical Bulletin publication on 16 June. Further guidance was also provided with the release of the February to April 2020 microdata. Please consult the documentation for full details. </p><p>Users should note that within the additional COVID-19 quarters, the pseudonymised variables Casenop and Hserialp may contain a significant number of missing cases (set as -9). These variables are only produced once a quarter by ONS, and so are not available in full for the additional COVID-19 datasets until the next standard calendar quarter is produced. It is intended that the Casenop and Hserialp variables in the COVID-19 datasets will be updated at the release of the next standard calendar quarter, when the values for the missing cases will become available. Users should also note that the Income Weight variable, PIWT, is not available in the non-standard quarters, although the Person Weight (PWT) is included.</p><p><strong>Weighting methodology information, May 2021</strong></p><p> </p><p>Following advice from ONS Labour Market Division regarding concerns over the estimates for Ethnicity, COB, Nationality and Disability from the LFS and APS, users are advised that levels and changes in levels should be used with caution. Rates published from the LFS and APS remain robust. This will particularly affect estimates for country of birth, nationality, ethnicity and disability, so any analysis using levels for these topics should be suppressed.<br><br>LFS and APS responses are weighted to official 2018-based population projections on demographic trends that pre-date the coronavirus pandemic. In the Labour Market Division's <a title="Coronavirus and the impact on payroll employment" href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/articles/coronavirusandtheimpactonpayrollemployment/experimentalanalysis">Coronavirus and the impact on payroll employment</a> article, analysis of the population totals currently used in the LFS weighting process is explained, and the intention to continue to make adjustments when appropriate.<br><br>The document <a title="Labour Force Survey weighting methodology" href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/methodologies/labourforcesurveyweightingmethodology">Labour Force Survey weighting methodology</a> details the reweighting methodology and includes release dates for reweighted estimates.</p><ul> </ul> <p><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span></p><br>

<p><strong>背景</strong><br>《劳动力调查》（Labour Force Survey，LFS）是一项独特的信息来源，采用就业、失业及经济不活跃的国际定义，涵盖职业、培训、工作时长及16岁及以上家庭成员个人特征等广泛相关主题，为社会、经济及就业政策制定提供依据。同样由英国数据档案馆（UK Data Archive）持有《年度人口调查》（Annual Population Survey）即源自LFS。</p><p>LFS于1973年首次每两年开展一次；1984至1991年间改为年度调查，包含全年季度调查及春季季度的“强化调查”（数据按季节收集）；1992年起开始提供季度数据，样本量与此前年度数据大致相当，随后更名为《季度劳动力调查》（Quarterly Labour Force Survey，QLFS）。1994年12月起，北爱尔兰的数据收集转为完整季度周期，与英国其他地区一致，至此QLFS覆盖全英国（部分额外的北爱尔兰年度LFS数据集亦可供使用）。关于QLFS背景的更多信息可查阅相关文档。<br><br><strong>LFS文档</strong><br>英国数据档案馆提供的LFS数据集配套文档主要包含各用户指南卷的最新版本及对应年度的问卷。然而，英国国家统计局（Office for National Statistics，ONS）会定期更新这些卷册，因此建议用户在开始分析前，查阅ONS<a title="Labour Force Survey - User Guidance" href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/methodologies/labourforcesurveyuserguidance">劳动力调查——用户指南</a>页面的最新文档。<strong>这对于旧版QLFS研究的用户尤为重要，因为用户指南文档中的信息和指导可能随时间变化。<br></strong><br><span style="font-weight: bold;">新重加权政策</span><br>根据<a href="http://doc.ukdataservice.ac.uk/doc/8343/mrdoc/pdf/biennial_lfs_aps_reweighting_policy.pdf" target="_blank">新重加权政策</a>，ONS回顾了2019年发布的最新人口估计数据，决定不开展2019年LFS和APS的重加权工作。因此，下一次重加权将于2020年进行，届时将纳入2019年次国家级人口预测数据（2020年5月发布）及2019年年中估计数据（2020年6月发布）。预计重加权后的劳动力市场汇总数据及微观数据将于2020年末/2021年初发布。<br><br><strong>源自QLFS的附加数据</strong><br>英国数据档案馆还持有更多QLFS系列数据：安全访问数据集（Secure Access datasets，见下文）、家庭数据集、两季度及五季度纵向数据集、为欧盟统计局（Eurostat）编制的季度、年度及专项模块数据集，以及部分额外的北爱尔兰年度数据集。<br><br><strong>终端用户许可与安全访问QLFS数据</strong><br>用户需注意，QLFS存在两个独立版本：一个依据标准终端用户许可（End User Licence，EUL）协议提供，另一个为安全访问版本。EUL版本包含国家及政府办公区域地理信息、3位数字标准职业分类（Standard Occupational Classification，SOC），以及主要工作、第二工作及上一份工作的3位数字行业组（2015年7-9月起，仅主要工作提供4位数字行业类别）。<br><br>安全访问版本包含更详细的变量，涉及：</p><ul><li>年龄：单岁年龄、出生年月、完成全日制教育的年龄及获得最高学历的年龄、最年长及最年幼受抚养子女的年龄</li><li>家庭单元及住户：包括与家庭中受抚养子女数量相关的多个变量（按年龄、与户主关系及与家庭负责人关系划分）</li><li>国籍及原籍国</li><li>更精细的地理信息：包括郡、单一制/地方当局、工作地点、统计 territorial 单位命名法2（Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics 2，NUTS2）及NUTS3区域、是否居住与工作在同一地方当局辖区及其他类别；</li><li>健康：包括主要健康问题、当前及过往健康问题</li><li>教育及学徒制：包括各类资格证书的数量及科目，以及与学徒制相关的变量</li><li>行业：包括主要工作、第二工作及上一份工作的行业、行业类别及行业组，以及被裁员前的行业</li><li>职业：包括主要工作、第二工作及上一份工作的5位数字行业子类及4位数字SOC，以及被裁员前的工作</li><li>系统变量：包括访谈所在周数及地址处的住户数量</li><li>可能还包含其他附加详细变量</li></ul><p>安全访问数据集（SNs 6727及7674）的访问条件比标准EUL版本更为严格。潜在用户需获得ONS认证研究员身份，完成额外申请表，并向数据所有者明确说明其需要访问附加变量的原因。强烈建议用户首先获取标准EUL版本数据，确认其是否满足研究需求。<br><br><strong>2017年出生国及国籍变量的变化</strong>：<br>2016年ONS数据访问团队开展披露审查后，2017年7-9月季度起对LFS的出生国（Country of Birth，COB）及国籍变量进行了调整，新增4个变量并移除4个变量。新分组与移民统计单元发布的分组一致，便于用户开展出生国及国籍相关的必要分析。新增变量为CRYOX7_EUL_Main、CRYOX7_EUL_Sub、NATOX7_EUL_Main及NATOX7_EUL_Sub；移除变量为CRYO7、CRYOX7、NATO7及NATOX7。<br><br><strong>变量DISEA及LNGLST</strong><br>ONS因2017年4-6月与7-9月数据存在明显不连续性而暂停的A08数据集（残疾人劳动力市场状况）现已恢复可用。由于该不连续性及目前调查尚无定论，在比较2017年4-6月与后续时间段数据时需谨慎。但需注意，这些估计值未进行季节性调整，因此季度间变化可能部分源于季节性因素。关于历史估计值比较的进一步建议将于2018年11月ONS发布2018年7-9月估计值时提供。ONS还发布了方法论文章《劳动力调查残疾数据的不连续性分析：2017年4-6月至7-9月》（<a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/methodologies/analysisofthediscontinuityinthelabourforcesurveydisabilitydataapriltojune2017tojulytoseptember2017">Analysis of the discontinuity in the Labour Force Survey disability data: April to June 2017 to July to September 2017</a>）。若对A08数据集有任何疑问，请发送邮件至<a href="mailto:[e-mail]">[e-mail]</a></p><p><strong>2019年发布的ONS劳动力调查方法论报告</strong>：</p><ul><li>一份通过与替代数据源（包括行政数据中的代理劳动力指标）比较评估LFS潜在偏差的进展报告：<a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/methodologies/exploringtheuseofexternaldatatoassessforobservedbiasinlabourforcesurveyestimatesinterimfindings">Exploring the use of external data to assess for observed bias in Labour Force Survey estimates: interim findings</a></li><li>《劳动力调查国家统计质量审查建议进展》（<a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/methodologies/progressagainstthelabourforcesurveynationalstatisticsqualityreviewrecommendations">Progress against the Labour Force Survey National Statistics Quality Review recommendations</a>）更新</li></ul><p><strong>LFS对COVID-19的响应</strong><br>2020年4月起，额外的非日历季度LFS微观数据已通过ONS安全研究服务及英国数据服务（UK Data Service）向政府部门及更广泛的研究社区提供。首批额外微观数据覆盖2020年2-4月，与6月16日发布的劳动力市场统计公报同步。随2020年2-4月微观数据发布还提供了进一步指导，请查阅文档了解详情。</p><p>用户需注意，在额外的COVID-19季度数据中，伪匿名变量（pseudonymised variables）Casenop和Hserialp可能存在大量缺失值（设为-9）。这些变量由ONS每季度生成一次，因此在生成下一个标准日历季度数据前，额外COVID-19数据集无法完整获取这些变量。计划在发布下一个标准日历季度数据时更新COVID-19数据集的Casenop和Hserialp变量，届时缺失值将补充完整。此外，非标准季度数据中不包含收入权重变量PIWT，但包含个人权重变量PWT。</p><p><strong>2021年5月加权方法论信息</strong></p><p>根据ONS劳动力市场司关于LFS和APS中种族、出生国（COB）、国籍及残疾估计值的建议，用户在使用这些指标的水平值及水平变化值时需谨慎，而LFS和APS发布的比率仍保持稳健。这将尤其影响出生国、国籍、种族及残疾的估计值，因此使用这些主题的水平值进行分析时应避免。<br><br>LFS和APS的响应数据根据2018年基准的官方人口预测加权，该预测基于新冠疫情前的人口趋势。在劳动力市场司的《新冠病毒对薪资就业的影响》（<a title="Coronavirus and the impact on payroll employment" href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/articles/coronavirusandtheimpactonpayrollemployment/experimentalanalysis">Coronavirus and the impact on payroll employment</a>）文章中，解释了当前LFS加权过程中使用的人口总数分析，以及适时进行调整的意向。<br><br>《劳动力调查加权方法论》（<a title="Labour Force Survey weighting methodology" href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/methodologies/labourforcesurveyweightingmethodology">Labour Force Survey weighting methodology</a>）文档详细说明了重加权方法，并包含重加权估计值的发布日期。</p><ul></ul><p><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span></p><br>