Luxembourg

1.Title of the survey:

Community Labour Force Survey (Enquête communautaire sur les forces de travail - EFT).

2.Organization responsible for the survey:

Central Service of Statistics and Economic Studies (Service central de la Statistique et des Etudes économiques - STATEC).

3.Coverage of the survey:

(a) Geographical:

The whole country.

(b) Persons covered:

The whole population living in ordinary households and usually resident on the territory of the Grand Duchy, including officials of the international institutions and Luxembourg frontier workers going to work daily in a neighbouring country. Persons whose own household is, like the director's or caretaker's household, situated in the buildings of a collective household, are also considered as constituting private households.

Excluded from coverage of the survey, although having links with the household surveyed, are persons living in collective households such as pensions, boarding schools, hospitals, religious institutes, workers' collective lodgings, etc.; and persons resident abroad, including foreign frontier workers.

Only persons aged 14 years and over are asked the questions relating to their economic activity.

4.Periodicity of the survey:

The survey has been annual since 1983 and takes place in the spring (April or May). From 1973 to 1981 it was held every two years (see under the heading History of the survey).

5.Reference period:

One specific week (in 1989, from 22 to 28 May).

6.Topics covered:

The survey provides information on employment, unemployment, underemployment, hours of work, duration of employment and duration of unemployment, discouraged workers, industry, occupation, status in employment and level of education.

7.Concepts and definitions:

(a) Employment:

Employed persons comprise persons aged 14 years and over who, during the reference week, were in the following categories:
  1. Persons at work as employees or self-employed, that is, who worked one hour or more for wages or salary in cash or kind, or for profit or family gain, in cash or kind;

  2. Persons having a job but not at work, i.e., who had already worked in their present employment (as employee or self-employed) but were absent during the reference week and had a formal job attachment.

The following persons in particular are considered as employed:

  1. persons temporarily absent because of sickness or accident, leave or vacation, labour-management dispute or strike, educational leave, maternity or paternity leave, unfavourable economic conditions or temporary suspension from work because of bad weather, mechanical breakdown, shortage of raw materials, etc.;
  2. full-time or part-time workers who were looking for another job during the reference period;
  3. persons who did any work for pay or profit during the reference period, while being retired and receiving a pension; or registered as jobseekers at an employment office, or receiving unemployment benefit;
  4. full-time or part-time students working full time or part time;
  5. apprentices and trainees, whether paid or unpaid; and participants in employment promotion schemes.
  6. paid or unpaid family workers;
  7. private domestic servants;
  8. members of producers' co-operatives;
  9. career and volunteer members of the armed forces.

Excluded from the economically active population are:

  1. persons doing unpaid community or social work;
  2. persons working in their own home;
  3. persons who did work of any kind during the reference period but were then subject to compulsory schooling.

(b) Underemployment:

Underemployed persons are all persons who stated they were doing part-time work because they had not been able to find a full-time job.

(c) Unemployment:

Unemployed persons are persons aged 14 years or over who during the reference period were:
  1. without work, i.e., had no job either as an employee or as a self-employed person;
  2. looking for work; and
  3. available within 15 days for a new job, either as an employee or self-employed.

The reference period used for job search is the four weeks preceding the survey, and "active search for employment" means any of the following: registering at a public or private employment agency; awaiting the results of a competitive examination for employment in the public sector; or an actual search for employment such as placing or answering newspaper advertisements, studying newspaper advertisements offering employment, direct contact with employers, or seeking assistance of friends, relatives, colleagues, trade unions, etc.

Unemployed persons include:

  1. full-time or part-time students seeking full-time or part-time work;
  2. persons without employment and immediately available for work, who have made arrangements to work in a new job at a date after the reference period;
  3. persons laid off with pay.

The following persons are excluded from the unemployed and considered as inactive:

  1. persons laid off temporarily or for an indefinite period without pay;
  2. persons without employment who were available for work but did not look for work during the reference period;
  3. seasonal workers awaiting seasonal (agricultural or other) employment.

(d) Hours of work:

They refer to the number of hours actually worked during the reference week in first job or business. This includes all hours including extra hours regardless of whether they were paid or not. Persons who have also worked at home (e.g. teachers preparing lessons) are asked to include the number of hours they have worked at home. Apprentices and trainees and other persons in vocational training are asked to exclude the time spent in school or other special training centres. Travel time between home and the place of work as well as the main meal breaks (normally taken at midday) are excluded.

The survey also covers the number of hours per week usually worked in first job or business. This covers all hours including extra hours, either paid or unpaid, which the person normally works, but excludes the travel time between the home and the place of work as well as the main meal breaks. As regards persons who usually also work at home, and apprentices and trainees, the same conditions apply as for hours actually worked.

Some persons, particularly the self-employed and family workers, may not have usual hours, in the sense that their hours vary considerably from week to week or month to month. In that case, the average of the hours actually worked per week over the past four weeks is used as a measure of usual hours.

(e) Informal sector:

Persons working in the informal sector cannot be identified by any question.

(f) Usual activity:

The survey does not cover this topic, apart from the activity, one year before the survey, of persons aged 14 years and over.

8.Classifications used:

Only employed persons are classified by industry, occupation and status in employment. These classifications relate to the principal employment. The question on level of education applies to all persons aged 14 years and over.

(a) Industry:

Employed persons are classified according to the General Industrial Classification of Economic Activities within the European Communities (NACE), which comprises 10 divisions and 61 classes.

Links have been established between the NACE and the International Standard Industrial Classification of all Economic Activities (ISIC-1968), in so far as these two classifications correspond with each other.

(b) Occupation:

The classification used is the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO-1968), to the level of the 81 minor groups.

(c) Status in employment:

The classification used comprises four occupational statuses:
  1. Employer;
  2. Self-employed
  3. Employee; this group is divided into salaried employee, official, international official or international salaried employee, wage-earner, and apprentice;
  4. Unpaid family worker.

It is convertible to the International Classification of Status in Employment (ICSE).

(d) Level of education/qualifications:

All persons aged 14 years and over are classified by the highest level of education or training reached. There are four levels:
  1. Primary,
  2. Lower secondary,
  3. Upper secondary,
  4. University or equivalent studies.

9.Sample size and design:

(a) The sample frame:

This consists of the list of census districts into which the country was divided at the last general Population Census of 31 March 1981.

(b) The sample:

Each of the 2,577 census districts is a sampling unit and comprises between 50 and 100 households. The survey uses a simple self-weighted sample design. A random selection of 225 sampling units is made, and persons composing the private households in the selected districts are included in the sample.

The sample comprises 10,000 households out of a total of approximately 135,000.

(c) Rotation:

Every year 1/4 of the sampling units of the previous year returns to the sample.

10.Field work:

(a) Data collection:

Data are collected by interviewers recruited every year for the survey; most of them are the same from year to year. The field survey lasts about one month and the reference week is at the end of April or the end of May.

(b) Substitution of ultimate sampling units:

Households that could not be interviewed because they were not at home or refused to reply are not replaced.

11.Quality controls:

All controls are made when the questionnaires are examined at the compilation stage, by means of filter questions and plausibility controls by cross-tabulation.

12.Weighting the sample:

Extrapolation to the universe is on the basis of the last population calculated from the 1981 Population Census. The variables used in the a posteriori stratification are sex, nationality (Luxembourg and other) and five-year age groups.

13.Sampling errors:

Not available.

14.Adjustments:

(a) Population not covered:

Adjustments are made when weighting the sample (see above).

(b) Under/overcoverage:

Adjustments are made when weighting the sample (see above).

(c) Non-response:

Adjustment is made by random duplication of registrations of responding units within the same population district.

15.Seasonal adjustment:

No adjustment is made for seasonal variations.

16.Non-sampling errors:

The principal non-sampling errors are errors of observation due to the lack of qualified interviewers.

17.History of the survey:

The Labour Force Survey is carried out within the European Communities in accordance with the questionnaires and methodology prepared by the Statistical Office of the European Communities (EUROSTAT). The survey took place every two years between 1973 and 1981, without any variation in its main elements during that time. It became annual in 1983, when it was thoroughly revised to follow very closely the concepts defined in the Resolution concerning statistics of the economically active population, adopted by the Thirteenth International Conference of Labour Statisticians in October 1982.

18.Documentation:

Service central de la Statistique et des Etudes économiques (STATEC): "Bulletin du STATEC" (Luxembourg); published eight times a year. The results of the Labour Force Survey are published annually, approximately one year after the reference period of the survey.

Non-published results can be obtained from STATEC upon request and the survey results are also available in the form of tables and/or magnetic tapes.