New Annual Business Inquiry (ABI) estimates for 2006 and revised 2005 figures were released at 09:30 on Wed 12 Dec 2007. The 2006 results are provisional and will be subject to revision in December 2008.


Discontinuities in 2006 ABI data

As previously announced, the 2006 ABI/1 is subject to three discontinuities:

  1. Change in reference date from December to September;
  2. Use of Business Register Survey data within the ABI/1 results;
  3. Change to the Minimum Domain Methodology.

Details of these are provided in the following document:

 Discontinuities affecting the 2006 Annual Business Inquiry (doc, 36Kb)


It is not possible to measure the impact of the changes made precisely, however the scale of the overall discontinuity between the 2005 and 2006 ABI/1 is estimated to be in the range of 150,000 to 350,000 (0.6 to 1.3 per cent of the total number of employees) in a downward direction.


Standard Errors

The ABI is a business survey which collects both employment and financial information. Only employment information is available from Nomis. Users should be aware that the data presented here are estimates, subject to both sampling errors (arising from the fact that the ABI is a survey, not a census) and non-sampling errors, for details see the article:

 Standard Errors for Annual Business Inquiry

 

About the ABI

Background information about the ABI is available from the following sources:

 ONS Labour Market Guide (link)

 The launch of the Annual Business Inquiry
    Labour Market Trends article, May 2001 (pdf, 48Kb)


How to Get Access to ABI data

Access to ABI data is restricted, you must first obtain a Chancellor of the Exchequer's Notice from ONS. Registered users can check whether they already have access by going to the my account section of the web site and selecting the ABI Notice option (ABI data is not available with guest logins). The cost for a new Notice is £125 + vat. To apply please complete the online application at:

Apply for a New Chancellor's Notice


For further information please contact the ABI helpline on 01633 456903or email: annual.employment.figures@ons.gov.uk