Background Information - LFS

• ELMS Publication Schedule
• The LFS Summary Process Diagram is a high level process map showing the collect, process, analyse, disseminate and evaluate steps.
• Labour Force Survey - Estimating and reporting uncertainty is a short guide explaining the use of confidence intervals and statistical significance in the monthly labour market report and how users can use the information to better understand estimated changes in labour market status.
• Labour Force Survey - Background Quality Report 2019 is a report that provides users with an evidence based assessment of the quality of the statistical output from the NI Labour Force Survey.
• Differences between the ILO unemployment and claimant count is a short paper detailing the definitional differences between the two measures of unemployment in Northern Ireland.
• The reporting reliability in user requested data paper explains NISRA policy for highlighting lower quality estimates based on small numbers of respondents.
• Highest Qualification Level Methodology (November 2023) - following a review of the methodology, this paper provides more detail on the methodology to derive highest qualification levels from the LFS.

LFS Reweighting Documentation

• Impact of LFS Revisions - 2019 is an analysis of the impact that revisions (using the latest population estimates and projections, a review of seasonal adjustment and a boost to the Northern Ireland sample) of the LFS datasets between June-August 2011 and October-December 2018 have had on headline estimates.
• LFS revision note - October 2020 - due to the change to survey operations (from face-to-face interviewing to telephone interviewing)  due to COVID-19, datasets from the LFS have been revised between January-March 2020 and May-July 2020.  This short paper looks at the overall impact this revision has had on the headline labour market estimates
• Impact of the LFS reweighting: July 2021 is an analysis of the impact that revisions (using the latest population weights using PAYE Real-Time Information data) of the LFS datasets between January-March 2020 and February-April 2021 have had on headline estimates.
• Impact of LFS reweighting on annual data: August 2021 is a short paper providing an overview of the impact of the an analysis of the reweighting (using the latest population weights using PAYE Real-Time Information data) of the annual LFS dataset for 2020 has had on headline estimates.
• Impact of the LFS reweighting: June 2022 is an analysis of the impact that revisions (using the latest population weights using PAYE Real-Time Information data and the introduction of the non-response bias adjustment to NI data) of the LFS datasets between January-March 2020 and January-March 2022 have had on headline estimates.
• Impact of the LFS reweighting: December 2024 is an analysis of the impact that revisions of the LFS datasets between January-March 2019 and April-June 2024 have had on headline estimates.  This reweighting covers new population estimates and a correction to the NI design-weight process.