Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union

Unit F3: Labour market

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The 'LFS main indicators' section presents a selection of the main statistics on the labour market. They encompass indicators of activity employment and unemployment. Those indicators are based on the results of the European Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS), in few cases integrated with data sources like national accounts employment or registered unemployment. As a result of the application of adjustments, corrections and reconciliation of EU Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS), 'LFS main indicators' is the most complete and reliable collection of employment and unemployment data available in the sub-domain ' Employment and unemployment'.

The EU-LFS data used for 'LFS main indicators' are, where necessary, adjusted and enriched in various ways, in accordance with the specificities of an indicator.  The most common adjustments cover:

- correction of the main breaks in the LFS series

- estimation of the missing values, (i.e. in case of missing quarters, annual results and EU aggregates are estimated using adjusted quarterly national labour force survey data or interpolations of the EU Labour Force Survey data with reference to the available quarter(s))

- reconciliations of the LFS data with other sources, mainly National Accounts (for Employment growth and activity branches) and national statistics on monthly unemployment (for Harmonised unemployment series).

- for a number of indicators (employment, activity, unemployment, supplementary indicators) seasonally adjusted data are available

Those adjustments may produce some differences between data published under 'LFS main indicators' and 'LFS series - Detailed survey results', particularly for back data. For the most recent years these two series converge, due to the implementation of a continuous quarterly survey and the improved quality of the data.

This page focuses on the particularities of 'LFS main indicators' in general. There are special pages for indicators 'employment growth', 'population in jobless households', 'average exit age of labour market' and 'education indicators: life-long learning, early school leavers and youth education attainment level.

General information on the EU-LFS can be found in the ESMS page for 'Employment and unemployment (LFS)', see link in related metada. Detailed information on the main features, the legal basis, the methodology and the data as well as on the historical development of the EU-LFS is available on the EU-LFS (Statistics Explained) webpage.

The 'LFS main indicators' are produced in accordance with the relevant international classification systems. The main classifications used are NACE Rev.1 (NACE Rev.1.1 from 2005) and NACE Rev. 2 (from 2008) for economic activity and ISCED 1997 and ISCED 2011 (from 2014) for the level and field of education.

For more details on classifications (including the comparability between the revised classifications), levels of aggregation and transition rules, please consult EU-LFS (Statistics Explained) - Methodology >> classification.

As a general rule the EU-LFS covers all economic sectors.

The definitions of employment and unemployment, as well as other survey characteristics follow the definitions and recommendations of the International Labour Organisation. The definition of unemployment is further precised in Commission Regulation (EC) No 1897/2000.

The main concepts related to the labour status are the following:

• Employed persons are all persons who worked at least one hour for pay or profit during the reference week or were temporarily absent from such work.
• Unemployed persons are all persons who were not employed during the reference week and had actively sought work during the past four weeks and were ready to begin working immediately or within two weeks.
• The active population (labour force) is defined as the sum of employed and unemployed persons.
• The inactive population consists of all persons who are classified neither as employed nor as unemployed.

Relevant breakdowns used are the following:

• Part-time workers are employed persons not working full time. The distinction between full-time and part-time work is generally based on a spontaneous response by the respondent. The main exceptions are the Netherlands and Iceland where a 35 hours threshold is applied, Sweden where a threshold is applied to the self-employed, and Norway where persons working between 32 and 36 hours are asked whether this is a full- or part-time position.
  
• Temporary contracts :  Employees with a limited duration job/contract are employees whose the main job will terminate either after a period fixed in advance, or after a period not known in advance, but nevertheless defined by objective criteria, such as the completion of an assignment or the period of absence of an employee temporarily replaced. The concept of fixed-term contract is only applicable to employees, not to self-employed. In most of the EU Member States, a majority of jobs are based on written labour contracts. In some countries, however, contracts of this type are settled only in specific cases e.g. for public-sector jobs, apprentices or other trainees within an enterprise.
  
• Educational attainment level  ISCED 0-2, ISCED3+4, ISCED5+ : The educational attainment level of an individual is the highest ISCED level successfully completed, the successful completion of an educational programme being validated by a recognised qualification (or credential), i.e. a qualification officially recognised by the relevant national education authorities.
  
• NEET - Young people not in employment and not in any education and training are persons aged 15-24 who have left formal education with at most lower secondary education and who are not employed nor engaged in any kind of further education or training.
  Further information on the NEET can be found here.

The indicators to supplement the unemployment rate are defined as follows:

• Underemployed part-time workers are persons working part-time who wish to work additional hours and are available to do so. Part-time work is recorded as self-reported by individuals.
• Persons seeking work but not immediately available are the sum of persons neither employed nor unemployed who: (a) are actively seeking work during the last 4 weeks but not available for work in the next 2 weeks; or (b)found a job to start in less than 3 months and are not available for work in the next 2 weeks; or (c) found a job to start in 3 months or more; or (d)are passively seeking work during the last 4 weeks and are available for work in the next 2 weeks.
• Persons available to work but not seeking are persons neither employed nor unemployed who want to work, are available for work in the next 2 weeks but are not seeking work.

For more details, please consult the EU-LFS (Statistics Explained) - Methodology.

Persons

The EU-LFS results cover the total population usually residing in Member States, except for persons living in collective or institutional households. While demographic data are gathered for all age groups, questions relating to labour market status are restricted to persons in the age group of 15 years or older. In the EFTA countries participating in LFS, i.e. Iceland, Norway and Switzerland, population data are not provided for the age-groups outside the scope of labour market questions. The EU-LFS covers all industries and occupations.

For more details and exceptions, please consult please consult the EU-LFS (Statistics Explained) - Methodology.

European Union, Euro area, EU-Member States, Candidate Countries, EFTA Countries (except for Liechtenstein), USA and Japan. Data for Cyprus refer only to the areas of Cyprus controlled by the Government of the Republic of Cyprus. Since 2014, data for France include also the French overseas departments (Guadeloupe, Martinique, Guyane, La Réunion), with the exception of Mayotte.

Monthly unemployment data and derived statistics refer to France including also the French overseas departments; this is not the case for all other statistics in this section: French overseas departments are not included in long-term unemployment, and for all other indicators either two series for France are available (France including overseas departments and metropolitan France) or data are flagged accordingly.

The time coverage varies with indicator and country. Data for all Member States are mostly available from 1998 onwards. Data relating to the former EU-15 are available from 1992 onwards.

Not applicable.

Please refer to the ESMS page on 'Employment and unemployment (LFS)' (see link below in section 'related metadata')..

Not available

Please refer to the ESMS page on 'Employment and unemployment (LFS)' (see link below in section 'related metadata')..

Please refer to the ESMS page on 'Employment and unemployment (LFS)' (see link below in section 'related metadata')..

Please refer to the ESMS page on 'Employment and unemployment (LFS)' (see link below in section 'related metadata')

Please refer to the ESMS page on 'Employment and unemployment (LFS)' (see link below in section 'related metadata')

Please refer to the ESMS page on 'Employment and unemployment (LFS)' (see link below in section 'related metadata')

News releases on-line (only for monthly unemployment)

Please refer to the ESMS page on 'Employment and unemployment (LFS)' (see link below in section 'related metadata')

Please consult free data on-line or address to ESTAT-LFS-USER-SUPPORT@ec.europa.eu

Micro-data are not applicable to 'LFS main indicators' results, but EU-LFS anonymised microdata are available for research purposes. Please refer to access to microdata.

See: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat

Please refer to the ESMS page on 'Employment and unemployment (LFS)' (see link below in section 'related metadata')

see section 11.1.

Please refer to the ESMS page on 'Employment and unemployment (LFS)' (see link below in section 'related metadata')

Please refer to the ESMS page on 'Employment and unemployment (LFS)' (see link below in section 'related metadata').

The main indicators stemming from the EU-LFS are used for monitoring and measurement of core employment policy objectives of the Community.

In this context arises the Communication from the Commission Europe 2020: A strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth where the Inclusive growth is intended fostering a high-employment economy delivering social and territorial cohesion. To this end, the Commission proposes several EU headline targets for 2020 and one of them is 75 % of the population aged 20-64 should be employed.

Some of the LFS main indicators are also Structural Indicators and/or Employment Guidelines Indicators.

Please refer to the ESMS page on 'Employment and unemployment (LFS)' (see link below in section 'related metadata').

Please refer to the ESMS page on 'Employment and unemployment (LFS)' (see link below in section 'related metadata').

Please refer to the ESMS page on 'Employment and unemployment (LFS)' (see link below in section 'related metadata').

Please refer to the ESMS page on 'Employment and unemployment (LFS)' (see link below in section 'related metadata').

Please refer to the ESMS page on 'Employment and unemployment (LFS)' (see link below in section 'related metadata').

Monthly data on seasonally adjusted unemployment rates are published approximately 31 days after the end of the month (average timeliness of 2009 releases). The quarterly series are updated 4 times a year approximately 120 days after the end of the reference quarter. Annual averages are published along with quarter 4 data. Some indicators like 'average exit age from labour market' or 'population in jobless households' may exceptionally have different publication dates because they are Structural Indicators subject to their own publication policy.

Not available

Please refer to the ESMS page on 'Employment and unemployment (LFS)' (see link below in section 'related metadata').

Comparability over time is considered as high. Adjustments to EU-LFS data described above in section 3.1 ensure correct comparability of the time series, even when improvements in the EU-LFS have compromised EU-LFS results. For some series, in particular employment and activity, estimates have been made for years in which not yet data for all quarters had been collected. These estimates are flagged accordingly. The estimates do not make use of other indicators, but are based on available quarterly data as well as the seasonal pattern of available years.

Integration of EU-LFS results with other data sources improve coherence across domains. In particular, special estimation methods for indicator 'employment growth' ensure coherence with national accounts. Please refer to the corresponding ESMS page.

The ESMS page on 'Employment and unemployment (LFS)' provides general explanations of coherence between EU-LFS, population statistics, national accounts employment and business surveys employment (see link below in section 'related metadata').

'LFS main indicators' estimates have full internal coherence, as they are all based on the same corpus of microdata and they calculated using the same estimation methods. Arithmetic and accounting identities in the production of LFS datasets are observed.

Annual results are calculated as average of quarterly results, and they are hence fully consistent. Monthly unemployment estimates are also forced by construction to be coherent with quarterly results.

Revisions of previously released non-seasonally adjusted data based on EU-LFS are not expected, unless major errors are identified in the data delivered or in their processing. Exceptional revisions to back series may happen e.g. after new estimates of population from a population census, or corrections due to break corrections. Revisions of seasonally adjusted data may occur due to changes in the adjustment models used.

For information on EU-LFS data revisions, please consult EU-LFS (Statistics Explained) - Data and publication. 

Revisions of seasonally adjusted data can occur once a year with the identification of new seasonal adjustment models, following the guidelines on seasonal adjustment.

The quarterly EU-LFS is the main source of the data. In case of missing quarterly data, annual results and EU aggregates are estimated by using adjusted quarterly national labour force survey data or interpolations of the EU Labour Force Survey data with reference to the available quarter(s). 

Other data sources used for some indicators are national accounts employment and registered unemployment.

The data for US and Japan are produced by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications Government of Japan, respectively. Eurostat obtains those data via OECD and disseminates them without any processing.

For EU-LFS: quarterly and annual. Unpublished monthly results are used for the estimation of monthly unemployment rates for some Member States.

For national accounts employment: quarterly and annual

For registered unemployment: monthly.

It depends on the data source used for each indicator. By default the ESMS page 'Employment and unemployment (LFS)'  provides the corresponding information (see link below in section 'related metadata'). Indicators with special procedures have their own ESMS page.

Prior to the dissemination of national data, LFS results are validated by the Member States.

EU and Euro area aggregates are calculated aggregating totals from Member Sates. For the data expressed in absolute values for each quarter (i.e. number of persons) no weighting is used. Rates/Ratios are subsequently calculated from the data expressed in absolute values (i.e. number of persons).

Monthly unemployment rates are calculated with different methods. Some indicators, like 'average exit age from labour market' or 'population in jobless households' have specific estimation methods too, documented in the respective ESMS pages.

Annual results are derived from the populations obtained at the annual level. Annual averages of the quarterly data are produced as simple averages of the quarterly populations.

For the period when the survey was run annually in spring, annual averages were calculated as follows: first, the spring quarter was used in combination with a simple regression model to estimate the missing quarters; then the annual averages were calculated from these quarterly estimates.

Interpolations for quarterly missing country data are flagged accordingly and published, and used for the compilation of annual averages and European aggregates.

Seasonal adjustment is performed indirectly, i.e. on the lowest available breakdown, and higher aggregates are derived from these series. This also applies to EU and EA aggregates.  Models are estimated once a year, while parameters are re-estimated with the inclusion of each quarterly data point.

For more information on the transition to a quarterly continuous survey, please consult EU-LFS (Statistics Explained) - Development and history.