ONS Publish Labour Market Trends November 2006

Labour Market Trends November 2006 was published recently by the ONS (Office for National Statistics). Summaries of relevant stories may be found below; for more information read the original in the October edition of Labour Market Trends:

News

As well as the quarterly labour market statistics update, this month there are articles on:

• Ethnicity analysis of the claimant count;
• Measuring public sector performance;
• Public sector employment;
• The economies of deprived neighbourhoods; and
• Older workers leaving and re-starting work.

National Statistics Features

Comparison of Statistics on Jobs:2006

This article compares estimates of jobs from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) with equivalent estimates from the Workforce Jobs (WFJ) series. It is one of a series of articles designed to enhance users’ understanding of employment and jobs statistics and raise awareness of developments aimed at improving coherence between sources.

The first part of the article compares LFS and WFJ estimates of the total number of jobs in the UK for June 2006. The second part compares LFS and WFJ estimates of civilian employee jobs by industry and describes some of the reasons why the two sources produce different results. It also outlines work that ONS is undertaking to improve coherence between LFS and WFJ statistics on jobs.

An overview of concepts, sources and definitions is given in the Technical Note at the end of the article.

Key findings include:

• The Labour Force Survey (LFS) estimate of the number of jobs in the UK for May-July 2006 is 1.04 million (3.3 per cent) lower than the equivalent Workforce Jobs (WFJ) figure for June 2006.
• Once measurable factors causing differences between the two sources have been taken into account, the adjusted LFS estimate of jobs is 152,000 (0.5 per cent) higher than the adjusted WFJ figure.
• The size and direction of the difference between the two sources varies by industry sector. For example, the LFS measures fewer civilian employee jobs in real estate, renting and business activities than the WFJ series and more jobs in public administration, manufacturing and education. The reasons are difficult to quantify but misclassification of industry in the LFS, caused by reporting error, is considered to be an important factor.