About the data
The Labour Force Survey (LFS), a survey of UK households, has been collecting information about individuals' personal circumstances and their labour market status since 1973.
Since 1992 the survey has been undertaken four times a year. The Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) is carried out under a European Union directive using internationally agreed concepts and definitions. Each quarter's sample of 60,000 private households is made up of five approximately equally sized 'waves'. Each wave is interviewed in five successive quarters. There is also a panel element within each survey.
One important feature of the QLFS is the facility to disaggregate much of the data spatially, for example by Government Office Region, county or local authority district (the latter two are available by Special Licence Access only).
How the data were used
This project focused on the nature of occupational change for those employed in Scotland between 2001 and 2008. The research applied 'shift-share analysis,' a quasi-accounting technique used by regional economists, to categorise occupational change over the period as either 'sectoral' (attributable to changes in the industrial structure) or 'structural' (attributable to the changing nature of labour demand on the part of firms). The technique was applied to all workers, then to males and females separately, and to full-time workers and part-time workers separately.
Variables used included the major occupational group of the respondents' main job, the gender of the respondents, whether the respondents were working full time or part time, and the 1992 industry sector of the workplace where the respondents were employed in their main job.
Three conclusions emerged:
- the process of sectoral change was of minor importance
- a process of 'upskilling' was evident in structural change
- these two results were applicable both to employees as a whole and when employees were disaggregated by gender and work status
About the author
John Sutherland is an honorary research fellow at the Centre for Public Policy for Regions, University of Glasgow.
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