WHAT'S NEW IN THE LABOUR FORCE
UPDATE TO LABOUR FORCE SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE
Commencing with the December 2015 Labour Force Survey, a minor wording change will be made to one question relating to the job search activity undertaken during the reference week. This change is necessary as the question currently refers to a superseded Australian Government program, Job Services Australia, which was replaced by the jobactive program from July 2015.
The question wording will be updated from:
"At any time in the last 4 weeks [have you/has name] checked or registered with a Job Services Australia provider or any other employment agency? " to
"At any time in the last 4 weeks [have you/has name] checked or registered with an employment agency?".
As the name of programs may change in the future, the question will refer to the generic "employment agency" rather than a specific program. The updated question wording is equivalent to the wording used prior to the changed questionnaire introduced in July 2014. As this question will remain an active job search step for the purpose of classifying a respondent as unemployed, and will continue to be asked in the same sequence relative to other job search questions, no discernible impact on the unemployment rate is anticipated as a result of this change. However, the ABS will monitor the impact of the revised question wording and response trends for job search questions.
PUBLICATION OF QUARTERLY REBENCHMARKED DATA
From the August 2015 issue the ABS commenced quarterly updating (rebenchmarking) Labour Force population benchmarks with the latest available Estimated Resident Population series. To enable users to assess the impact of the rebenchmarking the ABS will publish rebenchmarked Labour Force estimates one week prior to each quarterly (February, May, August and November) release of Labour Force, Australia (cat. no. 6202.0). The rebenchmarked estimates will include time series up to the month before the quarterly month.
The rebenchmarked estimates will be published under Labour Force, Australia - Rebenchmarked Estimates (cat. no. 6202.0.55.003) which will include all spreadsheets and one data cube currently released as part of Labour Force, Australia. As the purpose of this release is to enable the effect of revised population benchmarks to be analysed, a media release will not usually be provided. Rebenchmarked estimates relating to data published in both Labour Force, Australia, Detailed - Electronic Delivery (cat. no. 6291.0.55.001) and Labour Force, Australia, Detailed, Quarterly (cat. no. 6291.0.55.003) will continue to be published along with the current month estimates one week after each quarterly release of Labour Force, Australia.
When each quarterly release of Labour Force, Australia is published seasonally adjusted and trend rebenchmarked estimates will be subject to further revision as a result of concurrent seasonal adjustment utilising the additional observation.
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