Revisions to the Labour Force Survey as a result of changes to survey methods

In March the Labour Force Survey had to change the way in which it contacted people for initial interview, from face-to-face interviewing to telephone based. This change introduced a non-response bias evidenced in a change to the distribution of housing tenure of the Household Reference Person. To mitigate this impact we have introduced tenure into the survey weighting from the Labour market statistics released on 13 October 2020.

Further information about this can be found in an ONS article and blog

As a result of the introduction of tenure weighting, ONS have reweighted LFS estimates from January to March 2020 onwards. The process of reweighting will have an impact on estimates that make use of the Labour Force Survey published on Nomis.

Labour Force Survey

Estimates in the dataset released on 13 October 2020 have been reweighted to allow for tenure within the survey weighting from January to March 2020.

Annual Population Survey

Estimates in the dataset released on 13 October 2020 have NOT been reweighted to allow for tenure within the survey weighting. It is expected that reweighted estimates from April 2019 to March 2020 will be released by 15 December 2020.

Workforce Jobs

Labour Force Survey estimates used within the calculation of WFJ figures have NOT been reweighted to allow for tenure within the survey weighting. It is expected that reweighted estimates from Quarter 1 2020 will be released by 15 December 2020.