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QUALITY DECLARATION - SUMMARY

INSTITUTIONAL ENVIRONMENT

For information on the institutional environment of the ABS, including the legislative obligations of the ABS, financing and governance arrangements, and mechanisms for scrutiny of ABS operations, please see ABS Institutional Environment.

The Job Search Experience (cat. no. 6222.0) publication is the primary ABS data source about the experiences of unemployed people and long-term employed people in seeking work, and information on employed people who started their current job in the previous 12 months. It provides a comprehensive view of the nature and extent of unemployment, the problems people face in finding a job, and the different steps taken to find a job. For more information on the content and design of the survey refer to Quality Declaration - Relevance.

The Job Search Experience Survey collects information, as at July, on three labour force groups aged 15 years and over:

• unemployed persons;
• employed persons who started their current job in the previous 12 months;
• persons employed for more than a year in their current job who looked for work in the previous 12 months.

The Job Search Experience Survey (JSE) is conducted annually as a supplement to the monthly Labour Force Survey. Results from this survey are released the following year after the completion of enumeration.

Estimates from JSE, including those presented in the publication, are subject to sampling and non-sampling errors.

JSE was designed primarily to provide estimates at the Australia level. Broad estimates are available for state/territory and capital city/balance, though users should exercise caution when using estimates at this level because of the presence of high sampling errors. Relative standard errors for all estimates in the publication are available in table T2 in the Technical Note of the publication.

The conceptual framework presented in the publication is described in more detail in Chapters 3 and 6 of Labour Statistics: Concepts, Sources and Methods (cat. no. 6102.0.55.001). The statistics from this survey are comparable with other labour statistics produced by the ABS.

The ABS has been conducting JSE annually in its current form since 2002. Results of previous surveys on the job search experience of unemployed people conducted in July 1984, July 1985, June 1986, July 1988, July 1990, June 1991 and annually from July 1992 to July 2001 were published in various issues of Job Search Experience of Unemployed Persons, Australia (cat. no. 6222.0). Information on people who had started work for an employer for wages or salary during the 12 months up to the end of the reference week was collected in June 1986 and two-yearly from July 1990 to July 2000 and was published in Successful and Unsuccessful Job Search Experience, Australia (cat. no. 6245.0).

JSE was redeveloped in July 2011 to capture more information on a person's experience in looking for work. See Quality Declaration - Coherence, Redevelopment of the JSE 2011 survey for more information.

For the July 2013 survey, all data was collected from any responsible adult (ARA) in the household at the time of interview. The ARA responded on behalf of all people in the household who had taken steps to find work. Prior to 2013, information about job search experience and steps taken to find work was obtained via a personal interview with each relevant person in the household. As a result of this change, there has been no observable statistical impact on the data.

From December 2012 to April 2013, the ABS conducted a trial of online data collection for the LFS. Respondents in one rotation group (i.e. one-eighth of the survey sample) were offered the option of self completing their labour force survey questionnaire online instead of via face-to-face or telephone interview. From May 2013, the ABS has commenced the expansion of the offer of online collection to each new incoming rotation group. For more information see the article in the April 2013 issue of Labour Force, Australia (cat. no. 6202.0).

A measurement strategy was used to identify impacts on the LFS data. No statistical impact has been identified to date.

Other changes made to the collection methodology of JSE since 2002 are reflected in relevant publications. For more information on changes to the survey see Chapter 21.4 of Labour Statistics: Concepts, Sources and Methods (cat. no. 6102.0.55.001).

The Job Search Experience, Australia (cat. no. 6222.0) publication contains tables with footnoted data and a Summary of Findings to aid interpretation of the results of the survey. Detailed Explanatory Notes, a Technical Note and a Glossary are also included providing information on the terminology, classifications and other technical aspects associated with these statistics.

Further commentary is often available through articles and data published in other ABS products, including:
• Australian Labour Market Statistics (cat. no. 6105.0) - refer to the article archive for past articles.
• Australian Social Trends (cat. no. 4102.0) - refer to the article archive.
• Year Book, Australia (cat. no. 1301.0) - refer to the 'Labour' chapter.

The main products from the survey are Data Cubes and a PDF publication Job Search Experience, Australia (cat. no. 6222.0), released electronically via the ABS website. Additional data is available on request (subject to data quality). For the list of data items available, see Appendix 2 of the publication. Note that detailed data can be subject to high relative standard errors, and in some cases, has resulted in data being confidentialised.

For further information about these or related statistics, contact the National Information and Referral Centre on 1300 135 070 or the Labour Supplementary Surveys Section in Canberra on (02) 6252 7206.