Expanding the Analytical Capacities of the Labour Force Survey

Abstract

The article formulates a number of recommendations on the areas of expanding the analytical capacities of the National Labor Force Survey with consideration to the European statistics and the needs of the current phase of labor reforms in Ukraine. The first area is about implementing the recommendations of the International Labor Organization No 198 “On Labor Relations” and the updated International Classification of Status in Employment (ICSE-18), which are becoming critically important in view of the announced reform in labor law and liberalization of labor relations. As the Labor Force Survey is the only regular source of information collected from people about their actual status on the labor market, it is supposed to lay the basis for the statistical observation of the processes and implications of the labor relations reform. The program of the National Labor Force Survey has already included the major part of questions providing for the criteria for identifying the status in employment and determining the types of labor relations, but their formulations have to be adapted to the updated labor law. The second area concerns with the deeper processing of the survey results. It is high time to implement seasonal adjustment for the indicators of employment and unemployment. Once the experimental development of Eurostat on the statistics of labor market flows is used, it will enable for analysis and forecasting of the status transitions (employment – unemployment – inactivity) considering the individual characteristics of respondents. The labor life expectancy, estimating one’s potential lifelong participation in the labor market, should be computed for analysis of the comprehensive impact of social and demographic change and interactions of life cycles. The third area concerns with a more sensitive approach to vulnerable groups on the labor market. Due to the demographic change like reduction of the generations in working age and ageing of the population, all the potential reserves of the labor force need to be involved. A large part of them is associated with the groups that are regarded as vulnerable or the ones distanced from the labor market, which need additional measures for activation and support. To this end, it is recommended to extend the program of the National Labor Force Survey by including analytical aspects supposed to provide information about labor market participation and employment characteristics of persons with disabilities and older employees (55–64 years), about opportunities for learning lifelong and combining work and family duties. Also, studies of the analytical capacities of the National Labor Force Survey have to cover in-depth module interviews as a supplement to the core program of regular survey.