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Labour and Income, Social Statistics
Daniel F. Gustafsson
+45 39 17 35 89

dfg@dst.dk

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Labour Force Survey (LFS)

The Danish Labour Force Survey (LFS) is the contribution to the European LFS and data are delivered quarterly to the European Statistical office.

Labour Force Surveys are carried out in every European country as well as in many other countries around the world following common concepts and guidelines. This makes the Labour Force Survey the best Danish survey for international comparisons on labour market statistics.

User Needs

The LFS is used for monitoring the labour market and is especially suited to make studies on the behavior of persons on the labour market.

Users are often interested in e.g. unemployed persons who are not entitled to claim social benefits, youth unemployment (15-24-year-olds), specifications on working time and international comparisons.

The LFS is compilet using the same guidelines in all EU countries and several other countries and is therefor the best source for international comparisons, see Eurostat.

Statistics Denmark has received co-funding from the EU in order to implement changes and for the work related to the transition of the Labour Force Survey (LFS) into the IESS resolution in the years 2021 and 2022.

The Labour Force Survey is used mainly for studies on detailed behavior on the labour market. This is not possible in the registry-based sources. This can include:

  • How many hours you work during the reference week, overtime or absence and the reasons for absence.
  • How unemployed seek jobs, and if they are not seeking a job, what is the reason for this.
  • Reasons for working part-time rather than full time, and if they would prefer to work full time.

This would be typical examples of queries that the Labour Force Survey are particularly useful to illuminate.

The Labour Force Survey also annually asks questions about undeclared work for both employed and unemployed. The Labour Force Survey is the only source of undeclared work and is also used in the national accounts.

Customers can buy access to the survey with additional questions that have relevance to the labour market.

User Satisfaction

Customers can buy access to the survey with additional questions that have relevance to the labour market. In addition there is also the option to buy a special data extract with more detailed LFS data. In connection with the above mentioned services the customer will be invited to join a survey on customer satisfaction, which is used exclusively for internal use. We ask the customers whether they are satisfied with our work, if we can do better, and if they have any suggestions.

Data completeness rate

The Danish LFS meets Commission Regulation 430/2005, which makes data complete.