Honduras

1.Title of the survey:

Continuous Labour Force Survey (Encuesta Contínua sobre Fuerza de Trabajo).

2.Organization responsible for the survey:

General Directorate of Statistics and Census, Ministry of Planning, Co-ordination and Budget (Dirección General de Estadística y Censos (DGEC), Ministerio de Planificación, Coordinación y Presupuesto).

3.Coverage of the survey:

(a) Geographical:

(b) Persons covered:

Excluded are residents in collective institutions (such as hotels, convents, persons undergoing hospital treatment, etc.), foreign experts, and members of the armed forces (career and volunteer members and conscripts).

For the purpose of this survey the total population is divided into persons aged under 10 years and persons aged 10 years and over.

4.Periodicity of the survey:

The survey is half-yearly.

5.Reference period:

The week preceding the date of interview.

6.Topics covered:

The survey provides information on employment, unemployment, underemployment, hours of work, monthly household income, duration of unemployment, discouraged workers, industry, occupation, status in employment (occupational category) and level of education/qualifications. It also gives information on rates of employment, unemployment and underemployment of the labour force, numbers of the population by sex and age, internal and external migratory flows, and conditions in the households of the urban sectors investigated.

7.Concepts and definitions:

(a) Employment:

1. working: "persons who did any work or had any economic activity (for at least one hour) for which they received payment in money or otherwise, or obtained any gain, or performed such work or activity as family workers;" or

2. employed but not working: "persons who did not work but had a job from which they were temporarily absent for special reasons, such as illness or accident, public holidays or vacation, strike or lock-out, shortage of capital or raw materials, absence without leave, personal or family obligations, bad weather or mechanical breakdown."

Also included as employed are:

1. full-time or part-time workers who looked for another job during the reference period;
2. persons who performed some work for pay or profit, while being subject to compulsory schooling, or retired and receiving a pension;
3. full-time or part-time students working full time or part time;
4. paid apprentices and paid trainees;
5. paid and unpaid family workers;
6. private domestic servants;
7. members of producers' co-operatives.

Excluded are unpaid apprentices and unpaid trainees, persons only engaged in their own housework, and persons doing unpaid community or social work.

(b) Underemployment:

In order to measure underemployment it is divided into:

1. visible underemployment, which corresponds to shorter hours of work than the normal 36 or more hours weekly. This is characteristic of persons who against their will are working only part time.

2. invisible unemployment, involving a low level of income, and insufficent use of occupational skills (concealed or disguised underemployment) or of the worker's proficiency, and low productivity (potential underemployment).

(c) Unemployment:

The steps taken to look for work include approaches to employment agencies or employers, personal application to workplaces, and approaches to friends or relatives.

For the purpose of analysis unemployed persons are placed in two categories:

1. unemployed persons previously employed who have lost or given up their work for various reasons;
2. first-time jobseekers: unemployed persons without previous work experience who are looking for their first job.

Considered as unemployed (either unemployed previously employed or first-time jobseekers) are persons who did not look for work in the reference period because of special circumstances, e.g. they had previously looked for work and were awaiting a job already obtained; they were awaiting a reply to their application for work; they had looked for work before the reference period, but did not do so during that period because of special circumstances and intended to continue looking for work.

Also included are persons laid off temporarily or for an indefinite period without pay; full-time or part-time students who looked for full-time or part-time work; and seasonal workers awaiting agricultural or other seasonal work.

In order to measure unemployment it is divided into:

1. Open unemployment: i.e., persons of either sex aged 10 years and over who, during the reference period, were not working and were looking for paid employment, and first-time jobseekers (unemployed previously employed plus new workers);

2. Equivalent unemployment: the total number of full-time jobs to which underemployment is equivalent;

3. Total underutilisation: the sum of open unemployment and equivalent unemployment through underemployment (an estimate of the number of full-time jobs that would be necessary to give full-time employment to all the economically active population);

4. Concealed unemployment: the total number of inactive persons who want work, but do not work or seek work because they believe that they could not get work in current labour market conditions (also known as unemployment among the economically active population);

5. Total unemployment: the sum of three categories: open unemployment, equivalent unemployment through underemployment, and concealed unemployment.

For methodological purposes the labour force is divided into:

1. The primary labour force (FTP), composed of members of the economically active population who are heads of households and aged between 25 and 54 years;
2. The secondary labour force (FTS), composed of economically active persons other than heads of households, or heads of households aged under 25 or over 54.

Outside labour force are: retired persons, persons living on their income from property, bank interest, commission, etc., and who do not work, students, persons engaged in their own housework (if they do not receive a wage in cash or kind for that activity), persons incapacitated for work, and other persons.

(d) Hours of work:

(e) Informal sector:

(f) Usual activity:

8.Classifications used:

(a) Industry:

The codes used are those of the International Standard Industrial Classification of all Economic Activities (ISIC-1968).

(b) Occupation:

1. Professional workers, technicians and persons in similar occupations;
2. Directors, managers, and general administrators;
3. Employees of government offices, autonomous organisations and private enterprises;
4. Dealers and sellers;
5. Farmers, stockbreeders and agricultural workers;
6. Drivers of vehicles and persons in similar occupations,
7. Textile workers, carpenters, masons, plumbers, mechanics and electricians;
8. Workers in the graphic, chemical, mining, food and beverages, ceramics, leather, tobacco, etc., industries;
9. Stevedores, loaders and warehousemen;
10. Service occupations.

(c) Status in employment:

1. Employees, subdivided into wage earners and salaried employees in the public sector and wage earners and salaried employees in the private sector;
2. Non-employees or self-employed workers, divided into:
   1. Owners or employers with one or more paid workers (excluding persons whose only employees are domestic servants or unpaid family workers);
   2. Own-account workers (who may be helped by family workers and may also work alone or in association with others);
3. Unpaid family workers (excluding persons helping in domestic work or doing occasional work);
4. Members of producers' co-operatives.

(d) Level of education/qualifications:

1. None;
2. Primary (from one to four years);
3. Primary (from five to six years);
4. Secondary;
5. Higher.

9.Sample size and design:

(a) The sample frame:

(b) The sample:

The primary sampling units are segments of approximately five dwellings each; in each of the 16 towns a multi-stage scheme of selection was used.

In the two largest towns each cadastral area, neighbourhood, or housing estate as they were generally called, was inspected in advance and classified as high class, medium class, low class or marginal, according to its observable socio-economic characteristics. Housing estates were classified by socio-economic level and a random selection of them was made, considering them as primary sampling units (PSUs).

At the second stage, sectors (secondary sampling units - SSUs) of between 40 and 60 dwellings were selected, and a sketch of each selected sector was made. Samples were then taken of five dwellings from each sector to form the tertiary sampling units (TSUs).

In the remaining towns it was unnecessary to construct PSUs (housing estates), and the first stage was to classify sectors by their socio-economic level and to make a systematic selection with random starting point of the segments (TSUs) in the sample sectors.

The 1987 survey covered only five towns, but the same selection procedure was used. The five towns were the four most populated towns and one town situated in a geographical region covered by a socio-economic development project and therefore an area of special interest as regards information on households.

The selection procedure yielded a self-weighted sample of dwellings and persons for each town. To analyse variability, it is considered that each pair of segments selected from the continuous list of sectors belongs to the same stratum, thus generating a sampling system of two units selected in pairs from each stratum of approximately the same number of dwellings in a single socio-economic group.

(c) Rotation:

10.Field work:

(a) Data collection:

In 1986, the survey started the last week of August and was terminated the first week of October. The 1987 survey was conducted in March of that year.

(b) Substitution of ultimate sampling units:

11.Quality controls:

Interviewers were carefully selected for the field work and suitably trained on the lines of a working manual specially prepared for the survey. Groups of four interviewers were formed, each group under an experienced supervisor belonging to the established DGEC staff responsible for supervising the work and revising the data obtained. Reinterviewing was done by supervisors. Coding errors were corrected during the process of revision and critical examination before computerisation.

12.Weighting the sample:

The method used to expand the results of the survey to the level of the total population is a "ratio method" which proceeds as follows: if according to a source outside the survey the value "X" is the total estimated population (by means of census projections, etc.) at the date of the survey; and if the survey, using the sample design and the resulting probabilities of selection (or their equivalent, factors of expansion) estimates that value as X', we then have the ratio "r"¨=¨ X/X'. This gives a factor of correction for the survey estimates, as follows:

• if "r" = 1, the survey does not need to be corrected;
• if "r" < 1, the survey overestimates, and "r" serves to correct it;
• if "r" > 1, the survey underestimates, and "r" serves to correct it.

The method of using "r" is to multiply each estimated variable in the survey by "r", so obtaining the ratio estimator of the variable.

13.Sampling errors:

The sample sizes and the related errors or coefficients of variation (CV), calculated from the surveys, provide examples for an estimate of about 10 per cent of the population, as follows:

Town	Sample size (Dwellings)	CV (%)
Total of 16 towns	8,450	3
Northern Region		4
Central Region		4
Southern Region		6
Western Region		6
Eastern Region		6
Towns of Central District	2,000	4
San Pedro Sula	1,680	4
La Ceiba, Choluteca o Progreso	600	8
Each one of the remaining 11	270	10

14.Adjustments:

(a) Population not covered:

(b) Under/overcoverage:

(c) Non-response:

15.Seasonal adjustment:

No adjustment is made for seasonal variations.

16.Non-sampling errors:

Not available.

17.History of the survey:

Since September 1986, Continuous Labour Force Surveys have been carried out every six months. The sample design uses an initial group of 16 towns. In March 1987 the second survey was carried out in five towns.

The continuous system households surveys, in its present form, will serve to investigate a variety of topics. Some of them will require adjustments to the sample size, or additional stages in the selection of units of investigation.

18.Documentation:

Dirección General de Estadística y Censos: "Encuesta Continua sobre Fuerza de Trabajo" (Tegucigalpa); this is a half-yearly publication; the latest edition available contains the results of the March 1987 survey (Tegucigalpa, 1988).

Only part of the results are given in this publication. The DGEC is prepared to consider requests for additional data and information.