The international recommendations on the measurement of people's economic activities and the production of related indicators including the employment to population ratio, labour force participation rate and unemployment rate were updated at the 19th International Conference of Labour Statisticians (ICLS) in 2013. The updated standards introduced a number of important updates that will impact the way work and labour force statistics are collected and disseminated by countries around the world in the years to come. To support their wide implementation, the 19th ICLS called on the ILO to 'conduc
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The international recommendations on the measurement of people's economic activities and the production of related indicators including the employment to population ratio, labour force participation rate and unemployment rate were updated at the 19th International Conference of Labour Statisticians (ICLS) in 2013. The updated standards introduced a number of important updates that will impact the way work and labour force statistics are collected and disseminated by countries around the world in the years to come. To support their wide implementation, the 19th ICLS called on the ILO to 'conduct further conceptual and methodological work including testing' and develop 'technical manuals and model data collection instruments' aligned with the latest standards (ILO, 2013). As follow-up, between 2015 and 2017, the ILO implemented a global project of labour force survey (LFS) pilot studies in collaboration with 10 countries from different world regions. The Project had as main aim to develop and test alternative survey questionnaires to collect statistics on high priority topics including employment, labour underutilization - comprising time-related underemployment, unemployment and the potential labour force, and own-use production work, in line with the 19th ICLS standards. The ultimate objective is to develop evidence-based guidance to support countries in adopting the new standards. Related to these 'core' topics there were a selection of additional measurement objectives on topics which may be measured through Labour Force Surveys.
This report presents the main findings on the measurement of main activity drawn from the Project. Section I provides a short overview of the background to the pilot studies on the topic of main activity and the context of its inclusion in LFS questionnaires. Section II discusses the main issues with the measurement of main activity explored through the ILO LFS pilot studies, the questions tested and the analytical approach taken. The main findings are described in Section III. This is followed by a summary of the identified good practices and practical recommendations that can be made on the basis of the findings (Section IV). The final section (V) discusses some of the issues for which further testing or evaluation is recommended.
Excerpts from publication.
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