The Economics & Statistics Office (ESO) will be conducting the annual Labour Force Survey starting Sunday, 7 October 2012.

Trained interviewers will visit randomly selected samples of households in the three Islands over a four-week period to conduct interviews. The ESO once again appeals to the public for its full cooperation with the interviewers, and to provide the necessary information, which will be collected under the Statistics Law. A sample of the 2012 LFS Questionnaire and the Interviewer’s Manual are available from www.eso.ky.

Each interviewer will work under an Oath of Secrecy, and all information collected will be kept strictly confidential. No information is ever entered which would allow anyone to be able to link the data with an individual respondent.  All interviewers carry a photo identification, which should be worn for easy visibility, and respondents are advised to request identification from any interviewer before sharing information.

The information provided for the LFS will be used for estimating the Islands’ 2012 labour force statistics, such as the unemployment rate. The data will also be used in estimating household size and in making a projection of the country’s population. It is also expected that this year’s LFS will enable the ESO to estimate the so-called “underemployment rate” or the proportion of the labour force already working for less than 30 hours who nonetheless seek for additional work.

For further information on any aspect of the survey, or results of previous surveys, contact the Economics & Statistics Office at 949-0940 or visit www.eso.ky.