Employment and Unemloyment in the Czech Republic as Measured by the Labour Force Sample Survey

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. This procedure claimed a modification of array of questions and possible answers. Furthermore it proved in the total increase of the questionnaire content approximately about a third. However, the content and formal structure of publication were kept and they enable good orientation with respect to the publications for previous periods. At the same time the continuity and consistence of statistical data were ensured in the required time sequence. Beside the change in category of underemployed, the main change in content of particular characteristics was an inclusion of graduates of lower practical school among the persons with vocational upper secondary education. This arrangement was projected into the recounts of relevant data on educational structure of respondents in time series of basic indicators (section V.).
On 1 January 2000, a new 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 new 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 in the territorial structure 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 usually living in the dwellings, disregarding the type of their stay there (permanent, temporary or non-registered). The exception are temporary members of the armed forces who are surveyed, for practical reasons, at their residences before they left for the army. In persons under 15, only basic data are asked for: relationship to the head of household, age, sex, nationality and ethnicity-. Persons 15+ are supposed to answer additional questions concerning their status in the labour market (which does not apply to temporary members of the armed forces). 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 every quarter of the year 2002, the sample comprised about 24 thousand dwellings on the territory of the Czech Republic (0.6 % of all dwellings permanently lived in), in which almost 62 thousand respondents of all age groups were surveyed, including approximately 52 thousand respondents aged 15 or more. This sample size makes it possible to get very reliable estimates of labour market characteris-tics at the national level and sufficiently reliable regional estimates.

All data surveyed in LFS were weighed on the age structure of population in the year of 2002, projected on the basis of closing balances of demographic data at 31st of December 1999 and 2000. For the projection there were considered the natural and mechanical movements of population in the course of 2000 year. The mentioned method of recounts corresponds the best to the group of persons involved in the survey (permanently living population).
The LFSS is a continuous survey, whose results are evaluated and released on a quarterly basis. The results are released two months after the end of the reference quarter. The average annual data are issued in the deadline of three month after the end of measured calendar year.