Top UK statistician suggests that making participation in the Labour Force Survey compulsory could be a way to improve response rates.
Sir Ian Diamond, National Statistician of Australia, spoke at the Treasury Select Committee on 4 February. He said that requiring participation, as it is in Australia, was “a delicate balance, but one that might help with certain surveys”.
In recent years, the Labour Force Survey’s response rate has been dropping. It is now as low as 20 percent. The ONS announced recently that it would hire temporary staff to conduct interviews and invite people to participate.
ONS previously acknowledged that it could take up to 2027 for the ONS to fix the problems with its survey. This has caused concerns among policymakers and economics who rely heavily on data to make their decisions.
Diamond told the committee the lack of resources, and the recent budget cuts for the ONS were hindering the ability to turn around the survey. He claimed that it took twice as much effort to interview people for the survey than before the pandemic.
Participants aged 16 or older are selected at random from households and other accommodations to be interviewed. However, this is not mandatory.
Diamond explained that those who have been invited to interview are asked to contact the ONS and make an appointment. Just under a third of them do, he said. Diamond said that those who do not respond are contacted, and “nudged” to participate, but “very, very large levels of flat-out refusal”.
He admitted that people who take part in the survey may not complete it all five quarters.
Diamond was pleased with the progress made in the ONS so far. However, when asked whether the ONS could benefit from increased investment and improved links to government departments, Diamond replied “yes”.
The Resolution Foundation, a think tank, published last year a Briefing Note that explored alternatives to the LFS. It suggested that employment rates could be “materially” higher than ONS predictions and economic inactivity was lower than thought.
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