Employment and Unemployment in the CR as Measured by the Labour Force Sample Survey - Annual Averages

I. Basic methodological approaches

Since 2002 the LFS questionnaire has been fully harmonised with standard of Eurostat and has corresponded to the contents of Council Regulation (EU) no. 577/98. Nevertheless, the content and structure of Eurostat´s standard is still developing and in this context the CZSO makes appropriate adjustments to the national LFSS questionnaire. However, the content and formal structure of publication are kept in the same form as they were in last years and they enable good orientation with respect to the publications for previous quarters. At the same time the continuity and consistence of statistical data are ensured in the required time sequence.

On 1 January 2000, a territorial structure of the Czech Republic, dividing the country into 14 Regions (“higher territorial administrative units”), became effective based on Constitutional Act No. 347/97 Coll. In this context and for statistical and analytical needs, as well as for the needs of the European Commission, eight statistical territorial units (Areas) were defined within the Czech Republic in compliance with the Resolution of Cabinet of the CR No. 707/1998. The territorial structure of the Czech Republic complies with the system of NUTS (La Nomenclature des Unités Territoriales Statistiques) used in the EU member countries. The above change has been taken into account in this LFSS publication, which gives an insight into the labour market at all the basic levels, i.e. NUTS 1 - the Czech Republic, NUTS 2 - statistical Areas and NUTS 3 - Regions.

The LFSS concentrates on households living in dwellings chosen at random. It addresses all persons living usually in the dwellings, disregarding the type of their stay there (permanent, temporary or non-registered). In persons under 15, only basic data are asked for: relationship to the head of household, age, sex and nationality. Persons 15+ are supposed to answer additional questions concerning their status in the labour market. The survey does not cover persons living in collective accommodation establishments for a long period of time, which is why data on certain population groups (foreign nationals living and working in the CR in particular) are rather scarce. According to Eurostat, such data can be retrieved from administrative sources or acquired via a separate survey taken outside the LFSS.

In each quarter of the year 2006, the sample comprised almost 27 thousand dwellings on the territory of the Czech Republic (0.6 % of all dwellings permanently lived in), in which almost 64 thousand respondents of all age groups were surveyed, including more than 54 thousand respondents aged 15 or more. This sample size makes it possible to get estimates of labour market characteristics at the national level and also regional estimates with reliability required by Eurostat.

All data from the sample were reweighed onto average annual age structure of population according to demographic projection of quarterly middle states for Labour Force Sample Survey (Capt. III.C. – Population). The mentioned method of recounting corresponds the best to the group of persons included into survey (permanent residents).
The LFSS is a continuous survey, whose results are evaluated and released on a quarterly basis. The results are released three months after the end of the reference quarter. The average annual data are issued in the deadline of six month after the end of measured calendar year.