40 years of the Labour Force Survey

Transcription

1 40 years of the Labour Force Survey Looking behind the numbers Stephen Woodland Head of Survey Operations, Titchfield

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3 How did the LFS start? Survey conducted every two years in the Spring from Survey managed from St Catherine's House in London, with the field operations in Titchfield. OPCS - Office of Population Censuses and Surveys

4 The early questionnaire The first questionnaires were on paper. 16 pages long and almost exclusively about work and looking for work. The sixth question asked was...

5 The early questionnaire Questionnaire reflects different society, for example the greater proportion of people working in manufacturing Question 40 is a familiar one This is one of just 5 questions on education.

6 In the late 70s, early 80s, things start to change Contracting out of field work from OPCS. Due to staffing issues with the contractor, OPCS staff were used to cover work. In 1983, Social Survey Interviewers carried out 13% of the fieldwork. This influenced decisions going forward.

7 1984 first major change to the design of the LFS Annual survey (LFSA). Boost survey from March to May. Interviews in over 42,000 households in GB and 4,000 in Northern Ireland. Quarterly survey conducted throughout the year (called LFSC). Introduced wave structure. Interviewed 5 times at 13 week (quarterly) intervals. 15,000 households a quarter. OPCS responsible for all fieldwork in England and Wales and for the continuous survey in Scotland. LFSA was however done by the General Register Office in Scotland

8 Introduction of mixed mode collection Introduction of telephone interviewing in Carried out at centralised telephone unit in Titchfield. In 1987, 57% addresses covered by field interviewers, the remainder by telephone. Not everyone was happy about being interviewed on the telephone It took 8 weeks for the company that matches the telephone numbers to the sample to trace the numbers.

9 The need for speed

10 The LFS led the way In 1987, the Postcode Address File (PAF) was first used as a sampling frame. In the same year, advance letters were introduced

11 The questionnaire was also changing

12 A major technological leap Computer Assisted Interviewing introduced on both telephone and face to face samples September Rather than bundles of paper, the Titchfield office was overrun with floppy disks.

13 And then the LFS we know today In 1992 the quarterly LFS started. Sample size equivalent to that of the boosted survey (60,000 households). A dedicated field force of around face to face and 200 telephone interviewers.

14 The survey has continually changed In Spring 1997, the income question was first introduced. From March 2000 there were the boost surveys. Some seemingly fairly inconsequential changes required significant effort.

15 Further changes Cognitive testing introduced in 2005 for the 2006 questionnaire. Field forces were integrated in Covering new topic areas like sexual identification, national well-being.

16 Modernisation More recently new IT systems have been developed A new call scheduler; A JAVA Oracle based system to replace existing Clipper programmes that manage the data including rotation between waves.

17 Market testing The sponsor of the LFS was the Department of Employment In 1995, OPCS was invited to tender for the survey

18 How has the interviewer field force changed?

19 How has the interviewer field force changed? ONS Interviewer Field Force, 2004 to present TO FIF GFF LFS 100% 80% 60% 40% 20% 0% Field TO Female Male Average age of a field interviewer is 57; average age of a telephone interviewer is Field interviewers travel 3 million miles a year. Main and boost surveys require c. 450,000 interviewer hours.

20 Changes in the working environment

21 Response rates biggest challenge LFS Quarterly Survey: Wave 1 Response, Refusal and Contact rates, present Contact rate Response rate Refusal rate

22 What are we doing about response? Responsive designs to better allocate scarce interviewer resources. Improved metrics to maximise interviewer performance. Use of behavioural insight techniques to encourage participation. Becoming more respondent focussed. Continuous improvement in collection systems and processes. Investing in our staff.

23 But some things remain the same We have a dedicated group of staff, who take great pride in the production of the LFS. Maintaining quality standards is at the heart of our work.

24 Stephen Woodland THANK YOU