Labour Market Statistics User Engagement

Overview

Before completing the survey, please read the attachment in the "Related" section below.

The labour market statistics published by the ONS provide a comprehensive picture of the world of work in the UK.  The statistics are based on a suite of surveys that cover both households and businesses, as well as using data from administrative sources.  The ONS is undertaking an ambitious transformation programme to improve labour market statistics through survey transformation and increased use of data from administrative and other sources.  

The main survey that provides labour market information from an individual and household perspective is the Labour Force Survey (LFS).  The LFS has been running in some form since the early 1970s and has been quarterly since 1992.  Prior to the COVID pandemic, the survey used face-to-face interviews with households, followed up by telephone interviews.  However, response rates have been steadily decreasing and prior to the pandemic response for the first wave stood at 54% (compared with 63% in 2011).  During the pandemic period, face-to-face interviewing was suspended and the LFS was moved to telephone only which impacted on the response rate (31% in Q2 2020) and how representative the achieved sample was. 

Over the last few years, the ONS has been developing a transformed version of the LFS using an online-first multimode collection approach.  Since March 2020, a version of this online approach survey has been running “live” while being further developed.  With recent developments, including the addition of the ability to respond by telephone, the ONS is now in a position to begin moving towards incorporating the transformed LFS data into the regular labour market data releases. 

We understand this may have an impact on some of our users and we are carrying out this exercise to better understand those impacts and what the ONS can do to support you through the change. 

Before completing the survey, please read the attachment in the "Related" section below.