Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that the UK’s Labour Force Survey is providing correct and current data.

The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.

A response to the noble Lord Taylor of Warwick’s Parliamentary Question of 10/02/25 is below and attached.

Professor Sir Ian Diamond | National Statistician

The Lord Taylor of Warwick

House of Lords

London

SW1A 0PW

19 February 2025

Dear Lord Taylor of Warwick,

As National Statistician and Chief Executive of the UK Statistics Authority, I am responding to your Parliamentary Question asking what steps the Office for National Statistics (ONS) are taking to ensure that UK’s Labour Force Survey (LFS) is providing correct and current data. (HL4910).

In my previous letter to you in February 2024 (HL2453) I included details on the comprehensive recovery plan[1] rolled out by the ONS in the last quarter of 2023 to improve the GB sample of the LFS. Since that letter, we have seen the implementation of further measures[2] introduced in the second half of 2024 to ensure the continued sustainability of the LFS.

These measures cover a combination of improvements to both data collection and methods which help make the survey estimates more representative of the UK population. We have continued measures introduced under the 2023 recovery plan, such as the reintroduction of in-home interviewing, the increased incentive, and the sample boost. We have also recruited and trained additional interviewers to increase the resource assigned to LFS. Interviewers were previously focused primarily on the wave 1 sample of the survey, with waves 2-5 being picked up by field interviewers as a lower priority. Since our letter to the Treasury Select Committee in December 2024[3], which included detail on our planned interviewer up-lift, we have increased the number of interviewers working on waves 2-5 by 50 so far.

As part of our continued efforts to make the survey estimates more representative, the ONS have reweighted[4] the LFS data periods back to 2019 using more recent population information published in January 2024. This reweighting exercise resulted in increased levels’ estimates across most of the labour market series, with rates and averages seeing little change, and reduced the gap between the LFS employment data and payroll estimates of the number of employees. This partial reweighting exercise has also been extended to the two-quarter longitudinal outputs, which we released on 18 February 2025. Further work is under way looking at the implementation of a more comprehensive full reweighting of our data when new population projections are released later this year.

There are ongoing work streams aiming to understand the statistical quality, such as attrition, mode effects and bias in the longitudinal and cross-sectional samples. In addition, we are conducting a number of research projects exploring our approaches to communication with respondents and the incentives to participate in our surveys. These projects will also help us to understand how we can optimise the response to our surveys. As part of our agreed user and methods assurance, we continue to engage with our Stakeholder Advisory Panel and external methods advisors, Ray Chambers and James Brown, to discuss and invite feedback on all work stream developments.

To date, the aforementioned sustainability improvements have had a positive impact. In July to September 2023, the quarterly LFS data included 44,238 individual responses across the UK[5]. By the October to December 2024 quarter this had increased to 63,069 individual responses for the UK[6]. With the additional interviewer resource enhancing our data collection efforts over coming months, we expect the achieved sample and dataset size and its representativeness to improve further.

As we expect to continue seeing higher volatility in LFS data in the short term than might have historically been expected, we continue to advise users to apply caution when observing changes in the survey-based estimates. Users should also consider the commentary we publish alongside our statistical bulletins, as well as consulting the wider range of labour market data we publish when forming a view on the labour market.

In summary, progress has been made in recovering the LFS with the achieved sample now significantly higher and the incorporation of the latest population information into the estimates. The major changes we have made to the LFS will be fully included through all five survey waves by the first quarter of next year, which will inform the LFS estimates for publication in May 2025.

While we are working hard to improve our LFS-based data, our long-term solution for collecting labour market data is delivery of the Transformed Labour Force Survey (TLFS). We conducted a range of tests towards end of 2024, investigating the effects of a shortened questionnaire and specific changes to the content. We are planning to up-date users on the next steps in Spring 2025.

Yours sincerely,

Professor Sir Ian Diamond

[1] Labour Force Survey: planned improvements and its reintroduction, ONS article, 2 November 2023,
https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/methodologies/labourforcesurveyplannedimprovementsanditsreintroduction

[2] Labour market transformation – update on progress and plans: December 2024, ONS article, 3 December 024, https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/articles/labourmarkettransformationupdateonprogressandplans/december2024

[3] UKSA Response to the Treasury Select Committee, UKSA letter, 3 December 2024,

https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/45859/documents/227537/default/

[4] Impact of reweighting on Labour Force Survey key indicators: December 2024, ONS article, 3 December 2024,
https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/articles/impactofreweightingonlabourforcesurveykeyindicators/latest

[5] Labour Force Survey performance and quality monitoring report: July to September 2023, ONS article, 14 November 2023, https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/methodologies/labourforcesurveyperformanceandqualitymonitoringreportjulytoseptember2023

[6] Labour Force Survey performance and quality monitoring report: October to December 2024, ONS article, 18 February 2025, https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/methodologies/labourforcesurveyperformanceandqualitymonitoringreportoctobertodecember2024