Data from the monthly Labour Force Survey are released in two stages. The Labour Force, Australia, Detailed - Electronic Delivery (cat. no. 6291.0.55.001) and Labour Force, Australia, Detailed, Quarterly (cat. no. 6291.0.55.003) are part of the second release, and include detailed data not contained in the Labour Force, Australia (cat. no. 6202.0) product set, which is released one week earlier.

The Labour Force, Australia, Detailed - Electronic Delivery (cat. no. 6291.0.55.001) is released monthly. Labour Force, Australia, Detailed, Quarterly (cat. no. 6291.0.55.003) includes data only collected in February, May, August and November (including industry and occupation).

Since these products are based on the same data as the Labour Force, Australia (cat. no. 6202.0) publication, the 6202.0 Labour Force, Australia Explanatory Notes are relevant to both releases.

ABOUT THE DATA

• The results of the annual seasonal reanalysis, which was conducted on data up to February 2014, were introduced in this release. Further information on this reanalysis can be found below.
• Refined collection procedures were introduced in February 2014. It is expected that the response rates following these refinements will range between 93% and 95% each month. The response rate for February 2014 was 93.1%. For more details refer to What's New In The Labour Force in the December 2013 issue.
• As part the program to improve the range of labour statistics available, topics were included in the supplementary survey conducted with the February 2014 LFS. The topics related to persons not in the labour force, and underemployed workers (normally conducted in September) and job search experience (normally conducted in July). The supplementary survey was available for online self-completion. Supplementary surveys could potentially influence the response to the LFS and this will be analysed further when the supplementary survey is processed.
• The incoming rotation group for February 2014 had a higher proportion of employed persons and persons in the labour force (i.e. less persons not in the labour force) than the sample it replaced. This incoming rotation group contributed, in original terms, 37% of the increase in total employment and 29% of the decrease in persons not in the labour force in February 2014. Where trend estimates are available they provide a better measure of the underlying level and direction of the series especially when there are significant rotation group effects.

ANNUAL SEASONAL REANALYSIS

The annual seasonal reanalysis of the Labour Force series was conducted on estimates up to January 2014. The seasonally adjusted and trend estimates in this issue reflect adjustments made to the data as a result of this reanalysis. An exception is the aggregate hours worked series on which the annual reanalysis was conducted on estimates up to December 2013 and applied from January 2014, as noted in last month's issue.

While seasonal factors for the complete time series are estimated each month, they are reviewed annually at a more detailed level than is possible in the monthly processing cycle. The annual seasonal reanalysis takes into account each additional year's original data and assesses the appropriateness of seasonal adjustment parameters. An annual seasonal reanalysis does not normally result in significant changes to published estimates. Refer to the article on Annual Seasonal Reanalysis on page 6 of February issue Labour Force, Australia (cat. no. 6202.0) publication for more details.

CHANGES TO DATACUBES

The SuperTABLE datacubes released this month have had minor superficial changes to their titles, filenames and internal database ids. This is to better reflect the contents of the datacubes due to last months changes that were made as part of the 20 year rebenchmarking excercise and the change in geography to the Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS). The typical three character naming convention has also been applied consistently to both the filename and internal database id. Redundant meta-information and RSE annotation cut-offs have also been removed from the datacubes. Comprehensive RSE cut-off values are provided in the Explanatory Notes

The data field names, recodes, and table structures inside the datacubes have remained unchanged in order to minimise any disruptions to user created templates and other automatic extraction tools.

This month, the RM1 datacube has been modified since the first version released last month. Previously, sub-totals and totals had been pre-calculated and included as items in the datacube, which would cause incorrect "double-counting" of estimates if data fields were removed from the table. This month, the sub-totals and totals are included as recodes built from the base level, so removing fields will no longer have any impact on the resulting estimates.

However, datacubes RM2 and RM3 still include pre-calculated sub-totals and totals. This is due to the 'median duration of job search' item which can't be aggregated from the base level. A series of recodes have been included to help users redefine the table structure without producing incorrect estimates, but care must be taken to keep all fields present in the table.