The Quarterly Labour Force Survey is held under the UK Data Archive generic study number 33324 and the previous annual Labour Force Survey is held under generic study number 33132.
Each quarter interviews are achieved at about 59,000 addresses with about 138,000 respondents.
The questionnaire comprises a 'core' of questions that are included in every survey, together with 'non-core' questions that vary from quarter to quarter.
The questionnaire can be split into two main parts:
- 1) the first part contains questions on information about household, family structure, basic housing information and demographic details of individuals in the households.
- 2) the second part contains questions covering economic activity, education, health etc. and also includes a few questions asked on behalf of other Departments (including Department of Social Security and the Home Office).
Until Spring 1997 the questions on health covered mainly problems which affected respondents work. From Spring 1997 onwards, the questions are concerned with all health problems.
Detailed questions on income have been included in each quarter since winter 1992/93.
As well as the main survey, several other datasets, using the LFS data, have also been produced by ONS as detailed below:
- Quarterly Labour Force Survey : Local Area Data, 1992- (generic study number 33286) These are an aggregated set of data, containing a small number of variables relating primarily to employment status, backdated to the spring of 1992. These data have been produced for Counties/Scottish Councils, Local Authority Districts (LADs), Training and Enterprise Councils (TECs), Local Enterprise Companies (LECs), Government Offices (GOs), and Training, Enterprise and Education Directorate (TEED) regions.
- Quarterly Labour Force Survey : Unitary Authorities/Local Authorities (generic study number 33309) These datasets, available from December 1993 to May 2001, provide data at a more detailed local level than was previously available and include current administrative areas. ONS are currently reviewing the production of these datasets, and will not be releasing any more until further notice.
- Labour Force Survey Household Datasets (generic study number 33298) These are available from 1990 onwards. They include a number of new derived variables at household and family unit level, to facilitate the analysis of the economic activity patterns of whole households.
- Labour Force Survey Longitudinal Datasets (Generic study numbers 33315 and 33316) Available from winter 1992 onwards, the two-quarter datasets link data from two consecutive waves, while the five-quarter datasets link across a whole year and contain data from all five waves. They include a subset of the most commonly used variables from the Quarterly Labour Force Survey.
- Labour Force Survey SOEC Datasets (Generic study number 33324) The Statistical Office of the European Communities (SOEC), via Eurostat, co-ordinates information from labour force surveys in EU member states. The SOEC datasets are specially compiled for Eurostat, and contain a subset of variables from the main QLFS, and occasionally a special module.