WHAT'S NEW IN THE LABOUR FORCE
REBENCHMARKING
The estimates in this issue have been rebenchmarked using population benchmarks based on the latest Estimated Resident Population. See the article, Rebenchmarking Labour Force Estimates, in this issue for further detail.
ANNUAL SEASONAL REANALYSIS
As advised in previous issues of this publication, the ABS will publish results of the annual seasonal reanalysis of Labour Force series with the March 2015 issue. This will revise seasonally adjusted and trend estimates for key Labour Force series to the commencement of the series in February 1978. While seasonal factors for the complete time series are estimated every month, they are reviewed annually at a more detailed level than is possible in the monthly processing cycle to ensure that the estimates are of the highest quality.
In response to the recent independent review into the Labour Force Survey, the ABS introduced prior corrections from the December 2013 reference month to account for the changed supplementary survey program. In addition, the ABS committed to reviewing these prior corrections and implementing relevant prior corrections over the entire series. This work will be undertaken as part of the annual seasonal reanalysis. As the supplementary survey program had been relatively stable prior to 2014, implementing prior corrections to earlier periods is generally not expected to have a significant impact on the series. The March 2015 issue will include information on the impact of the annual seasonal reanalysis, including the implementation and refinement of prior corrections for the supplementary survey program.
NEW LABOUR FORCE OUTPUTS
The ABS conducted a review in 2010-11 of content included in the labour household survey program and has been working towards introducing a range of new Labour Force outputs. The introduction of the new outputs has been delayed with priority given to investigations into recent Labour Force results, implementation of regular quarterly rebenchmarking, the upcoming annual seasonal reanalysis and to ensure that testing of the system producing the new outputs is comprehensive. While the timing for introducing the new outputs is yet to be finalised, the ABS is working towards an implementation with the April 2015 issues (released in May 2015) for monthly outputs including the detailed monthly release (cat. no. 6291.0.55.001) and the May 2015 issue (released in June 2015) for quarterly data. The ABS will either confirm or provide a further update on the release of the new Labour Force outputs in the March 2015 issue of this publication. In the meantime the existing outputs will continue to be produced for the February and March 2015 issues of this and related publications but will cease when the new outputs are introduced.
Blank templates for the new Labour Force outputs were released in October 2014 attached to the Information Paper: Forthcoming Changes to Labour Force Statistics, October 2014 (cat. no. 6292.0). These templates still reflect the planned new outputs and are available to assist clients to prepare for the changed outputs. Clients who rely on the Labour Force spreadsheets and data cubes are encouraged to use the templates to ensure that their processes can continue to access the correct data once the new outputs are implemented.
Quality Declaration 
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