Puerto Rico

1.Title of the survey:

Household Survey (Encuesta de Viviendas).

2.Organization responsible for the survey:

Bureau of Labor Statistics, Department of Labor and Human Resources (Negociado de Estadísticas del Trabajo, Departamento del Trabajo y Recursos Humanos).

3.Coverage of the survey:

(a) Geographical:

The whole country.

(b) Persons covered:

The civilian non-institutional population. In each household interviewed, a labour force questionnaire is addressed to household members aged 16 years and over.

The survey excludes members of the armed forces and inmates of institutions such as prisons, asylums and hospitals for chronic disease.

4.Periodicity of the survey:

The survey is monthly.

5.Reference period:

The week containing the 12th of each month.

6.Topics covered:

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

7.Concepts and definitions:

(a) Employment:

Employed persons comprise all those aged 16 and over who, during the reference week, were either:
  1. "'at work', i.e. those who did any work for pay or profit, or worked without pay for 15 hours or more on a family farm or business for a member living in the same household, or
  2. 'with a job but not at work', i.e. those who did not work and were not looking for work but had a job or business from which they were temporarily absent because of illness, vacation, bad weather, industrial disputes, or lay-off with instruction to return to work within 30 days of lay-off. Also included are persons who had obtained new jobs at which they were scheduled to begin work within the next 30 days and persons who are going to start the operation of an office, business, store or farm, within 30 days of the enumeration date."

Also included are:

  1. full- and part-time workers seeking other work during the reference period;
  2. full- and part-time students working full- or part-time;
  3. persons who performed some work for pay or profit during the reference period, while being subject to compulsory schooling, or retired and receiving a pension;
  4. paid and unpaid apprentices and trainees;
  5. private domestic servants.

The following groups are excluded from the employed and considered as out of the labour force: persons engaged in own housework; members of producers' co-operatives; members of the armed forces (altogether excluded from the survey); persons doing civilian service equivalent to military service and persons doing unpaid community or social work.

(b) Underemployment:

It comprises the following groups:
  1. "persons working less than 35 hours a week for a wage or salary who wanted to work more hours;
  2. subsistence farmers (i.e. farmers who produce mainly for consumption in their own household), irrespective of the number of hours worked or desire to work more hours;
  3. self-employed persons (other than subsistence farmers), irrespective of the number of hours worked, who wanted to work more hours."

(c) Unemployment:

Unemployed persons are those aged 16 years and over "who did not work at all during the reference week, but were actively looking for work. Also included as unemployed are persons who would have been looking for work except that:
  1. they expected to return to a job from which they had been laid off for a period of 30 days or more;
  2. they expected to start a new job 30 days or more from the enumeration date. Also included are all persons who expected to start the operation of an office, store, business or farm 30 days or more from the enumeration date;
  3. they were temporary ill."

Also included are:

  1. full- and part-time students seeking full- or part-time work;
  2. persons registered as jobseekers at an employment office or receiving unemployment benefit, even if they had performed some work for pay or profit during the reference period.

Being "actively looking for work" is interpreted as having taken one or more of the following steps during the reference week: checked or registered with a public or private employment agency; telephoned or applied in person to an employer for work; answered a newspaper job advertisement or advertised for work; filled in job applications; worked without pay in order to acquire training or work experience; applied to unions, etc.

Out of the labour force are persons keeping house, at school, unable to work or retired, the voluntary idle and certain seasonal workers for whom the reference week fell in an "off-season" and who were not looking for work.

(d) Hours of work:

They refer to all hours actually worked during the reference week, including overtime.

(e) Informal sector:

This topic is not covered by the survey.

(f) Usual activity:

This topic is not covered by the survey.

8.Classifications used:

Both employed and unemployed with previous work experience are classified by industry, occupation and status in employment. All household members covered by the survey are classified according to their level of education.

(a) Industry:

The classification is based on the Alphabetical Index of Industries and Occupations, Census of Population-1970. Coding is done at the 2-digit level. The classification is linked to the International Standard Industrial Classification of all Economic Activities (ISIC-1968) at the 2-digit level (divisions).

(b) Occupation:

The classification is based on the Alphabetical Index of Industries and Occupations, Census of Population-1970. Coding is done at the 2-digit level. The classification is linked to the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO-1968) at the 2-digit-level (minor groups).

(c) Status in employment:

The classification distinguishes the following status categories:
  1. Private employee,
  2. Government employee,
  3. Self-employed,
  4. Unpaid family worker.

(d) Level of education/qualifications:

Household members are classified according to the number of completed years of studies.

9.Sample size and design:

(a) The sample frame:

It is based on the latest Population Census (at present the 1980 Census). The country is stratified into 12 geographical areas, each of which is divided into two zones: urban and rural, thus creating 24 strata. New construction projects (built after April 1980) are organized in a separate file for selection purposes. Once a project is chosen it becomes part of the regular stratum it belongs to according to geographical area and zone.

(b) The sample:

It is based on a stratified area multi-stage design. Block groups (mainly in urban areas) and enumeration districts (mainly in rural areas) are systematically selected using a sample interval of 150 and ordered separately by urban and rural zone.

Each zone is ordered according to each geographical area by municipality and ascending order. Within each block or enumeration district (ED), segments are also selected systematically. The size of a block or ED is therefore the number of segments into which it can be divided. It comprises approximately six households in urban areas and 12 in rural areas. Sampling units are replaced according to a rotation plan which divides all selected areas in eight groups, so that between any two consecutive months, 3/4 of the sample (or six of the eight sub-samples) are common to both.

The overall sample size is of approximately 7,000 households, and the sampling fraction 1/150.

(c) Rotation:

The sample being divided into eight groups, each month a new group enters the sample and another group leaves it definitely. During two consecutive months, 75 per cent of the household units remain in the sample. The sample follows an 4-8-4 sampling rotation pattern: each household is visited during four months, then rests during eight months and is then visited four more times.

10.Field work:

(a) Data collection:

Data are collected by personal interviews conducted by permanent staff members of the Puerto Rico Bureau of Labor Statistics who are distributed among the central office and the different area offices. The interviews are conducted during the week immediately after the reference week, i.e. the week containing the 19th of the month.

(b) Substitution of ultimate sampling units:

When a sample household unit cannot be reached or where there is total non-response, no substitution is made.

11.Quality controls:

Frequent training is provided for the staff responsible for the survey. Field supervisors re-interview approximately 5 per cent of the eight groups in the sample. Eventual inconsistencies are discussed between field supervisors and interviewers. During the processing stage, two groups of editors, one at all local offices and another at the central office, check and edit the work done during field operations. Revisions, verifications of answers and production of listings of errors are carried out by computer.

12.Weighting the sample:

The survey results are expanded to estimates of the civilian non-institutional population aged 16 years and over by age and sex groups, in the following way: first, an estimate of the total population of Puerto Rico is obtained from the Planning Board. This is computed on the basis of the results of the latest Population Census, taking into account the changes occurred in the population due to natural increase (births and deaths) and net migration. This total population figure is adjusted to obtain civilian non-institutional population by subtracting estimates of the number of persons in the armed forces and of the institutional population. Finally, the civilian non-institutional population is broken down by age and sex groups, according to the distribution observed in the sample during the last 12 months.

13.Sampling errors:

The global standard error is approximately 3.5 to 4.0 per cent.

14.Adjustments:

(a) Population not covered:

Demographic estimates of the excluded groups (see under Coverage of the survey) are available from the latest Population Census. The survey results are not subject to any adjustment.

(b) Under/overcoverage:

No adjustment is made.

(c) Non-response:

The non-response rate is approximately 3.5 per cent each month. This corresponds to the number of households for which the interviewer was unable to complete the interview (Type A - non interviews).

15.Seasonal adjustment:

Adjustments for seasonal variations are carried out using the X-11 Variant method. This method is applied to employment and unemployment data, separately to men and women, and to age groups 16 to 19 and 20 years or more. Totals are obtained by aggregating these groups.

16.Non-sampling errors:

Due to the fact that the information is obtained from households and in most cases the respondent is not the person to whom the data refers, the industrial classification may not be as accurate as the data by industry resulting from the Survey on Employment, Hours and Earnings based on establishment payrolls, which is also carried out by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

17.History of the survey:

The first Labor Force Survey started in 1947 on a monthly basis. Revisions are conducted every ten years on the basis of the results of each Population Census.

Up to July 1976, the economically active population consisted of persons aged 14 years and over.

18.Documentation:

For results of the survey, see:

Department of Labor and Human Resources, Bureau of Labor Statistics: "Statistical Report" (monthly) (San Juan). The survey results are released one month after the reference period of the survey.

Published results are also available, upon request, in machine readable form (diskettes, magnetic tapes, etc.).

For methodological information, see:

idem: "Como se preparan los datos de empleo y desempleo para Puerto Rico" (How employment and unemployment data are prepared for Puerto Rico) (ibid., May 1983).