Consultation on Proposed Changes to Certain Labour Market Tables and Related Publications

We asked for your opinions on the proposed changes to certain labour market tables and related publications. In the consultation launched in February 2018 we proposed to cease publication of some supplementary labour market tables because they are either:

• based on old pension age breakdowns
• use variables which are known to have a low survey response rate, which can impact on the results when detailed breakdowns are produced; and/or
• have low user demand demonstrated by the low number of downloads of these tables from the ONS website.

We also proposed to publish some supplementary labour market tables without gender breakdown and to change the source of some tables from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) to the Annual Population Survey (APS). As part of the latter proposal we will also move dissemination of these tables from the ONS website to NOMIS. The final proposal in the consultation related to changing the frequency of the Reconciliation of estimates of employment and jobs article from four times a year (March, June, September and December) to once a year (every March in order to compare estimates for the whole year).  The proposals in the consultation affected only the supplementary labour market tables, with no implications for the tables feeding into the labour market bulletin. The proposals related only to the published tables and at this stage there will be no impact on the LFS microdata used to produce these outputs.

We received some responses from a variety of organisations. We would like to thank all respondents for taking the time to respond to the consultation.

The main feedback was:

• All respondents agreed with the proposal to cease publication of tables A03 NSA and SA: Employment, unemployment and economic inactivity for men aged from 16 to 64 and women aged from 16 to 59 if the historic series remained accessible after the discontinuation of the tables.
• Most respondents had no concerns about ceasing the publication of the tables listed below:

1. EMP11: Employment by socio-economic classification
2. EMP12: Part-time and temporary workers by socio-economic classification
3. EMP15: Job related training received by employees
4. EARN07: Gross weekly earnings by industry
5. EARN08: Distribution of gross hourly earnings of employees
6. UNEM02: Unemployment by previous occupation
7. UNEM03: Unemployment by previous industrial sector and
8. RED02: Redundancies by industry, age, sex and re-employment rates .

However, a minority of respondents had concerns over ceasing the publication of tables:

1. EMP11: Employment by socio-economic classification
2. EMP12: Part-time and temporary workers by socio-economic classification
3. EMP15: Job related training received by employees
4. EARN07: Gross weekly earnings by industry and
5. EARN08: Distribution of gross hourly earnings of employees.  

• Most respondents agreed with the proposal to produce the tables below without a gender breakdown:

1. EARN05: Gross weekly earnings of full-time employees by region and
2. EARN06: Gross weekly earnings by occupation .

• All of the respondents agreed in principle with the proposal to change the data source of the list of tables provided below from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) to the Annual Population Survey (APS).

1. EMP04: All in employment by status, occupation and sex
2. EMP08: All in employment by occupation
3. EMP09: Employees and self-employed by occupation and
4. EMP10: Part-time and temporary workers by occupation .

• Most respondents agreed to the proposed change in publication frequency of the Reconciliation of estimates of employment and jobs article from four times a year (March, June, September and December) to once a year (every March in order to compare estimates for the whole year).

We reviewed the feedback provided by respondents and we are going to undertake the actions listed below:

• We will cease the publication of the tables listed below from August 2018 onwards but we will keep the historic time series on the ONS website:

1. A03 NSA and SA: Employment, unemployment and economic inactivity for men aged from 16 to 64 and women aged from 16 to 59
2. EMP12: Part-time and temporary workers by socio-economic classification. Even though users had some concerns about ceasing the publication of this table they indicated that it is less vital for their work than table EMP11: Employment by socio-economic classification. This is the reason why table EMP12 is going to be discontinued.
3. UNEM02: Unemployment by previous occupation
4. UNEM03: Unemployment by previous industrial sector and
5. RED02: Redundancies by industry, age, sex and re-employment rates. However, ONS will consider reinstating these tables in the future if the size of the estimates increases.

• We will continue publishing the tables listed below as there is demonstrated user need for them:

1. EMP11: Employment by socio-economic classification
2. EMP15: Job related training received by employees
3. EARN07: Gross weekly earnings by industry and
4. EARN08: Distribution of gross hourly earnings of employees.

• We will produce the tables listed below only at the people level from August 2018 onwards:

1. EARN05: Gross weekly earnings of full-time employees by region and 
2. EARN06: Gross weekly earnings by occupation.

• We will change the data source of the list of tables provided below from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) to the Annual Population Survey (APS) and we will move dissemination from the ONS website to NOMIS. Moreover, the estimates will be available for an annual period rather than quarterly. The data on NOMIS will be in a presentational format and we will add links on the ONS website to direct users to the new data homepage. An example of a table produced on NOMIS is available. The change in the data source for these tables will take place from February 2019 onwards.

1. EMP04: All in employment by status, occupation and sex
2. EMP08: All in employment by occupation
3. EMP09: Employees and self-employed by occupation and
4. EMP10: Part-time and temporary workers by occupation.

• We will change the publication frequency of the Reconciliation of estimates of employment and jobs article from four times a year (March, June, September and December) to once a year (every March in order to compare estimates for the whole year). This change will come into effect following the scheduled publication on 12^th June 2018.