Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the finding in the Resolution Foundation report Get Britain's Stats Working, published on 20 November, that official labour force data has potentially overlooked nearly one million workers.

Data from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) remains subject to a number of quality concerns following a fall in response rates and are currently badged as official statistics in development.

As set out in its November 2024 Labour Market Overview, [1] the Office for National Statistics (ONS) recommend using LFS data alongside other labour market indicators, including Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Real-Time Information (RTI) and Workforce Jobs (WFJ). The ONS note that the long-term coherence between the RTI and WFJ suggests that these sources may be likely to provide a more reliable estimate of employment, particularly for employees.

The ONS are continuing to improve the quality of the LFS, as described in its latest report LFS performance and quality monitoring report, [2] and will carry out a further reweighting of LFS estimates, detailed in its Labour market transformation article [3], that will bring them into line with the ONS’ latest assessment of population numbers. The ONS is continuing to develop the Transformed Labour Force Survey (TLFS) as the long-term solution for collecting labour market data [4].

[ 1] https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/uklabourmarket/november2024

[2] LFS performance and quality monitoring report: July to September 2024

[3] Labour market transformation article

[4] https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/articles/labourmarkettransformationupdateonprogressandplans/july2024