Report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on the implementation of Council Regulation (EC) No 577/98 SEC(2010)115
Date: 2010-02-09
Institutions: European Commission
Subjects: EU statistics, report, sample survey, sampling, statistical method, working population

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EUROPEAN COMMISSION  

Brussels, 9.2.2010 
COM(2010)46 final 

REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND 
THE COUNCIL 

on the implementation of Council Regulation (EC) No 577/98 

SEC(2010)115 

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REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND 
THE COUNCIL 

on the implementation of Council Regulation (EC) No 577/98 

1. 

INTRODUCTION 

This is the fourth in a series of three-yearly reports that the Commission is required to submit 
under Article 7 of Council Regulation (EC) No 577/98 on the organisation of the labour force 
sample  survey  in  the  Community1  (hereinafter  referred  to  as  ‘LFS  legislation’).  The  first 
report  was  submitted  by  the  Commission  in  2000  and  covered  the  period  1998-1999,  the 
second  was  submitted  in  2003  and  covered  the  period  2000-2002,  and  the  third  one  was 
submitted in 2006 and covered years 2003-2005. 

The  present  report  documents  the  progress  made  by  Member  States,  Candidate2  and  EFTA 
countries (hereinafter referred to as participating countries) in 2006 and 20073 with respect to 
the provisions of Council Regulation (EC) No 577/98 as amended by Commission Regulation 
(EC) No 2104/20024 and by Regulation (EC) of the European Parliament and of the Council 
No  2257/2003.5  In  particular,  Regulation  (EC)  No  2257/2003  introduced  some  innovations 
within the LFS legislation from 2006 onwards, which included the following: 

•  six additional survey characteristics; 

•  mandatory  inclusion  of  module  ‘n’  on  atypical  working  times,  which  hitherto  had  been 

surveyed on the basis of a gentlemen’s agreement; 

•  distinguishing between core variables, which should be surveyed on a quarterly basis, and 
structural  variables,  which  need  to  be  surveyed  only  as  annual  averages  and  for  which  a 
sub-sample of the full yearly sample can be used. 

2. 

MAIN POINTS 

The  progress  made  in  implementing  specific  aspects  of  the  LFS  legislation  described  in  the 
previous paragraph is summarised below. The assessments presented in this report are based 
upon  quality  reports,  data  and  other  information  received  from  the  countries  concerned,  in 
addition to analyses of the national questionnaires. 

1 
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3 

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5 

OJ L 77, 14.3.1998, p. 3. 
The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is, for the first time, also covered by this report. In some 
tables the abbreviation MK is used. This is a provisional code which does not prejudice in any way the 
definitive nomenclature for this country, which will be agreed following the conclusions of negotiations 
currently taking place on this subject at the United Nations. 
Due  to  delays  in  submitting  the  2008  quality  reports,  and  in  the  light  of  the  transition  in  the  NACE 
classification, it was decided not to include 2008 in the present report. 
OJ L 324, 29.11.2002, page 14. 
OJ L 336, 23.12.2003, page 6. 

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2.1. 

Implementation of continuous quarterly surveys — Article 1 

Further improvements have been made in the implementation of the continuous survey and in 
the  production  and  dissemination  of  quarterly  results.  In  particular,  in  2007  Luxembourg 
started  producing  quarterly  results  and  Croatia  moved  to  a  continuous  survey.  Only  Turkey 
and Switzerland still do not have a continuous survey. Turkey, however, produces quarterly 
results, while Switzerland plans to introduce a continuous survey in 2010. 

In 2007 all participating countries conducting a continuous survey except Bulgaria complied 
with  the  requirement  of  covering  all  weeks  of  the  year.  This  marks  an  improvement  for 
Hungary,6 Slovenia and Romania, which until 2005 had only a partial coverage, and Croatia, 
as a result of introducing the continuous survey in 2007.  

On  the  other  hand,  little  or  no  progress  has  been  achieved  by  Luxembourg,  Slovenia, 
Hungary,  the  Netherlands  and  Germany  as  regards  a  uniform  distribution  of  the  reference 
weeks throughout the year, as these countries still largely deviate from it. 

2.2. 

Units and scope of the survey — Article 2 

Participating countries still adopt different concepts of resident population, some based on the 
length  of  stay,  others  based  on  the  legal  status,  which  usually  involves  administrative 
registration in population lists.  

As regards the coverage of the national economic territory, France still does not comply as the 
départements d'outre-mer (DOM) are not covered in quarters 1, 3, and 4. However, work is 
ongoing to achieve full coverage by 2013. 

A further aspect concerning geographical comparability is that different national practices are 
in  place  for  collective  households.  They  concern  the  degree  of  coverage  of  the  institutional 
population in the sample (full, partial or none), the methods of collecting information (directly 
sampling institutional households or via the private household with which people in collective 
households maintain relations) and their inclusion in or exclusion from the target population 
when calculating the survey weights. Several countries inconsistently do not cover collective 
households in the sample but gross up the sample to the total population (Belgium,  Ireland, 
Latvia,  Malta,  Romania,  Slovenia  and  Switzerland),  or  —  alternatively  —  survey  persons 
living in collective households but only consider the population in private households for the 
purposes of calculating the survey weights (Lithuania). 

Of the six countries that sample individuals, only Denmark and Finland provide Eurostat with 
household information using a sub-sample. In the case of Denmark, however, the sub-sample 
is far from complete. On the other hand, Sweden, Norway, Iceland and Switzerland send no 
household data. Denmark and Sweden recently committed to provide household data fully in 
line with the regulatory framework from 2010 onwards, while Norway will need more time. 

6 

Although formally covering all the weeks of the year, Hungary still carried out a very limited number of 
interviews with reference to the last week of each quarter. 

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2.3. 

Precision requirements — Article 3(1) (2) 7 

As regards the precision requirement in Article 3(1), the threshold of an 8 % relative standard 
error  for  an  estimate  of  unemployment  equal  to  5 %  of  the  working  age  population  was 
exceeded  both  in  2006  and  2007  in  35  NUTS  II  regions  out  of  the  288  (292  in  2007)  with 
more  than  300 000  inhabitants.  These  regions  are  located  in  France  (10  regions),  United 
Kingdom  (8),  Greece  (5),  Poland  (5),  Romania  (3),  Portugal  (2),  Bulgaria  (1)  and  Belgium 
(1).  In  France,  however,  work  is  ongoing  to  redesign  the  labour  force  survey,  including  a 
gradual  increase  of  the  sample  size  which,  from  the  beginning  of  2011,  should  make  it 
possible to meet the requirement. Poland, for its part, gradually increased the sample size of 
regions not in line with Article 3.1 on average by 7 % in 2008 and 2009. 

As concerns the precision requirement in Article 3(2), Germany, Poland and Romania failed 
to meet the threshold of a 2 % relative standard error for change between two quarters of an 
estimate  equal  to  5 %  of  the  working  age  population,  set  for  countries  with  20  million 
inhabitants or more. In order to comply with the requirement, Poland has planned to double 
the  sample  size  from  2010.  For  Belgium,  Bulgaria,  Denmark,  Estonia,  Latvia,  Lithuania, 
Slovenia and Croatia, the relative standard error was over 3 % — the figure set as a threshold 
for countries with a population between 1 and 20 millions. 

2.4. 

Survey characteristics — Article 4.1 

A  general  improvement  in  the  completeness  of  datasets  has  been  observed  since  the  last 
report,  for  instance  with  regard  to  variables  in  module  ‘a’  on  demographic  background  or 
module ‘f’ on visible underemployment. The six new characteristics introduced by Regulation 
(EC)  2257/2003  were  fully  implemented  by  most  countries  in  2006.8  However,  some 
participating  countries  are  still  not  providing  some  (and  in  a  few  cases  full  sub-sets)  of  the 
mandatory variables. Ireland is still not sending correct data on household compositions and 
on  respondents’  nationality.  Nevertheless,  efforts  to  align  to  the  LFS  legislation  have  been 
stepped up in autumn 2009 and a satisfactory solution can be expected by the end of the year. 

2.5. 

Ad hoc modules — Article 4.2 

An ad hoc module on transition from work into retirement and another on accidents at work 
and work-related health problems were scheduled for the years 2006 and 2007 respectively. 

All the participating countries carried out both ad hoc modules, except for Croatia and Iceland 
in 2006, and Turkey, the Former  Yugoslav  Republic of Macedonia and Switzerland in both 
years.9  Initial  data  were  generally  sent  on  time,  with  the  exception  of  Ireland  for  2006  and 
Denmark, France, Iceland and Norway for 2007. However, often several retransmissions were 
needed  to  obtain  a  correct  dataset.  Some  countries  deviated  from  the  due  reference  period, 
which was set either as the whole year or the second quarter. For the 2007 module, the United 

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Precision requirements as stated in article 3(1) (2) of Council Regulation (EC) 577/98 leave room for 
interpretation.  In  addition,  they  refer  to  a  theoretical  situation  which  hardly  occurs  in  practice.  Their 
assessment  thus  necessarily  relies  upon  ad  hoc  hypotheses.  Consequently,  it  should  not  be  seen  as 
providing  conclusive  proof  of  compliance  but  only  as  showing  circumstantial  evidence  of  deviations 
from the requirements. 
Ireland  introduced  four  new  characteristics  in  2007,  but  one  is  still  missing.  Finland  and  Norway 
implemented some of them in 2008, while Switzerland will do so in 2010.  
Turkey carried out the 2007 ad hoc module, but did not send the results to Eurostat. 

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Kingdom used quarter 1 as a reference period, while the Netherlands and Austria spread the 
sample over more than one quarter, but did not cover the whole year.  

2.6. 

Definition  of  unemployment  and  the  twelve  principles  for  formulating 
questionnaires — Article 4(3) 

In 2006 and 2007, eight countries — Italy, Luxembourg, Latvia, Hungary, Romania Slovakia, 
Croatia  and  Norway  —  changed  their  questionnaires  to  better  align  with  the  definition  of 
unemployment as laid down in Commission Regulation (EC) No 1897/2000.10 By the end of 
2007, Denmark, France, Italy, Latvia, Austria, Romania, Norway and Switzerland were fully 
compliant. Most problems in the deviating countries still related to the reference period for the 
availability  to  start  work  (Belgium,  Bulgaria,  Czech  Republic,  Greece,  Ireland,  Cyprus, 
Lithuania, Luxembourg, Hungary, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia, Finland, Croatia, the 
Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Turkey, Iceland) and follow-up questions to check 
the  employment  status  of  lay-offs  (Bulgaria,  Czech  Republic,  Germany,  Luxembourg, 
Netherlands,  Portugal,  Slovakia,  Sweden,  United  Kingdom,  Croatia,  Iceland).  Spain,  United 
Kingdom and Iceland set the lower age limit at 16, whereas Estonia, Ireland, Slovenia and the 
Former  Yugoslav  Republic  of  Macedonia  did  not  correctly  test  for  persons  not  looking  for 
work because they had already found a job. 

In  2006  and  2007,  several  countries  changed  their  questionnaires  to  achieve  a  closer 
alignment  with  the  twelve  principles  for  formulating  the  questionnaire.  However,  in  2007 
only principles 8 and 11 were respected by all participating countries.  

Most deviations still concerned: 

•  tests for job attachment of lay-offs (principle 2), 

•  the  question  on  job  search,  not  specifying  that  a  search  for  minor  jobs  also  has  to  be 

considered (principle 3), 

•  specification of reference periods for employment, job search and job search methods and 

for current availability to start working (principle 6), 

•  the  specification  that  contact  with  a  public  employment  office  as  an  active  job  search 
method is distinct from the renewal of a registration to claim unemployment benefits and 
from the assistance provided by the employment office to improve the employability of the 
registered unemployed person (principle 10). 

Ireland, Malta and Croatia still started with questions on main status, in violation of principle 
1.  The  Netherlands  used  the  current  situation  as  a  reference  period  for  employment,  thus 
departing  from  principle  6,  and  addressed  questions  on  job  search  only  to  those  expressing 
willingness  for  work,  which  runs  counter  to  principle  7.11  Four  countries  —  Spain, Austria, 
Romania and Sweden — fully respected all the principles.12  

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OJ L 228, 8.9.2000, p. 18. 
The Netherlands is currently undertaking work to fully align with principles 6 and 7. 
Recently, a Task Force on the quality of the Labour Force Survey, which was coordinated by Eurostat, 
recognised that there is room for clarifying some of the principles. It therefore recommended having the 
twelve principles reviewed by a group of experts set up by Eurostat. 

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Several countries changed their questionnaire after 2007, or planned to do so in the coming 
years, to comply with the definition of unemployment or to fully observe the twelve principles 
(see Table 15). Lithuania has committed to be in line in both respects from 2010. 

2.7. 

Structural variables — Article 4.4 

Seven  countries,  namely  Spain,  Germany,  France,  the  Netherlands,  Finland,  the  United 
Kingdom and Norway, made use of the option to survey structural (yearly) variables on a sub-
sample of the full yearly sample in 2006 and 2007. However, only Spain used a sub-sample 
for  nearly  all  of  the  42  structural  variables.  The  Netherlands,  United  Kingdom  and  Norway 
used the option for about half of them, while Finland, Germany and France used it for a very 
limited  number  of  yearly  variables.  Some  countries  did  not  ensure  consistency  of  totals 
between  the  yearly  sub-sample  and  the  annual  average  of  the  quarterly  results.  In  addition, 
and probably due to initial technical difficulties in using a sub-sample, yearly weights were 
generally  delivered  rather  late  for  the  year  when  the  sub-sample  was  introduced,  which 
prevented the timely dissemination of the yearly results.  

2.8. 

Transmission of results — Article 6 

Nearly  all  participating  countries  sent  their  initial  data  within  the  12-week  transmission 
deadline. Often, however, time-consuming retransmissions were necessary. When it came to 
meeting  the  deadline  for  sending  correct  files,  only  Spain  and  Portugal  always  delivered 
microdata  in  time  for  all  quarters  of  2006  and  2007,  while  Malta,  Croatia,  the  Former 
Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Iceland were late for all transmissions both years, while 
Belgium, Ireland, Italy, Turkey and Switzerland13 were late for all 2006 deliveries.  

3. 

CONCLUSIONS 

Overall,  in  the  period  under  consideration,  participating  countries  made  good  progress 
towards fuller compliance with the LFS legislation. National surveys have been adapted both 
to  take  into  account  modifications  in  European  Union  legislation  and  to  comply  with  the 
requirements already in place at the time of the previous Report and from which there were 
national deviations. The quality of both the national and community labour force surveys as a 
whole  has  thus  been  improved,  especially  in  terms  of  relevance,  accuracy,  geographical 
comparability and timeliness.  

All Member States now carry out a continuous survey providing quarterly results, and almost 
all  of  them  cover  all  the  weeks  of  the  year.  The  relevance  of  the  Community  labour  force 
survey was improved by implementing the six new characteristics, by reducing the number of 
mandatory variables not provided and by having two additional countries send microdata to 
Eurostat.  Cross-country  comparability  was  enhanced,  as  several  countries  revised  their 
questionnaires  to  achieve  compliance  with  the  definition  of  unemployment  and  to  increase 
consistency  with  the  twelve  principles  for  the  questions  on  labour  status.  The  accuracy  of 
many  national  surveys  benefited  from  improved  design  and  organisation  —  for  example 
through increased sample size, more efficient rotation schemes, enhanced weighting system or 
by the adoption of computer-assisted modes which replace paper questionnaires. With a few 
exceptions, timeliness of data delivery has also improved.  

13 

The  Former  Yugoslav  Republic  of  Macedonia  and  Turkey  started  data  transmission  with  the  2006 
datasets. Switzerland, carrying out an annual survey, only transmitted one dataset. 

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Additional improvements are already in the pipeline at both national and European level. A 
further push to improve the quality of the Community labour force survey can be expected in 
the coming years, with the implementation of the 43 recommendations of the Task Force on 
the Quality of the Labour Force Survey.14 

However, there were still deviations from a full implementation of the LFS  legislation.  The 
main concerns for the Commission in this regard are mentioned below.  

First  data  transmissions  were  sometimes  not  of  sufficient  quality  for  dissemination,  and 
several  revisions  were  needed  before  an  acceptable  version  was  sent.  This  had  a  negative 
impact  on  the  timeliness  of  data  dissemination  and  prevented  the  introduction  of  a  Labour 
Force Survey release calendar, which would be highly appreciated by users and would further 
increase the relevance of the survey.  

So far, despite progress since the previous report, most countries neither yet fully comply with 
the definition of unemployment nor yet fully observe the twelve principles for the formulation 
of  questions  on  labour  status.  This  reduces  the  geographical  comparability  of  the  key 
estimates  relating  to  employment  and  unemployment.  Geographical  comparability  is  also 
influenced  by  the  use  of  different  concepts  and  practices,  e.g.  as  regards  the  resident 
population or the coverage of institutional households.  

Although  it  is  not  possible  to  provide  clear  conclusions  on  compliance  with  the  precision 
requirements (see footnote 7), evidence from the assessment presented in this report is that the 
efforts made so far have not always been sufficient to produce fully reliable estimates. Some 
countries  still  have  to  adjust  their  survey  design,  e.g.  by  increasing  the  sample  size  or  by 
adopting adequate rotation patterns, so as to significantly improve the precision of estimates 
either at regional level or of changes between quarters. 

Few  countries  have  so  far  taken  up  the  option  of  using  a  sub-sample  to  survey  structural 
variables, which was intended as a major tool to reduce the response burden. 

As regards ad hoc modules, coverage and respect of the deadline for data transmission were 
satisfactory. The Commission will continue working closely with the Member States to ensure 
that  they  achieve  full  compliance  with  the  LFS  legislation.  Eurostat  conducts  compliance 
monitoring on a regular basis. Where non-compliance is detected, appropriate action is taken 
by the Commission. 

14 

The final report of the Task Force is available on request. 

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