Skip to content

Accuracy and reliability

Contact info

Labour and Income, Social Statistics
Mikkel Zimmermann
+45 51 44 98 37

mzi@dst.dk

Get as PDF

Registered unemployment

The statistics comprise all unemployed persons above 16 and until they reach their official retirement age. Only persons registered as recipients of unemployment benefits or social assistance/initial assistance are covered by the statistics. Persons who do not recieve social assistance or unemployment benefits are thus excluded from the statistics on unemployment, although they are registered with the public job centres. It is impossible to give a single figure on the statistical accuracy, but apart from the circumstance that a person must receive unemployment benefits or social assistance in order to be registered as unemployed, the accuracy of the statistics is relatively high.

From the 12. of October 2022 and onwards the gross unemployment statistics will be expanded with a monthly unemployment indicator published 10-12 days after the end of the reference month. In a test period of 11 months the new indicator has estimated the following official gross unemployment total within 1.000 unemployed persons.

Overall accuracy

It is not possible to give an exact number of 'the uncertainty'. The data quality in the HAMR, FLEUR and CPR registers is generally very high. The statistics on the registered number of unemployed persons are also, to the greatest possible extent, compiled in accordance with the guidelines laid down by UN's International Labour Office (ILO). According to these guidelines a person has to meet 3 requirements to be defined as unemployed: 1) out of work, 2) available for work and 3) actively in search of work.

The concepts of unemployment in register based unemployment statistics do not strictly meet ILO's guidelines. The most important differences are:

  1. That unemployed students or pensioners are not registered as unemployed, due to the circumstance that they do not receive unemployment benefits or cash benefits.
  2. That the registered unemployment is calculated as the unemployed population's total unemployment volume (converted into full-time unemployed persons), i.e. including unemployment for part-time persons during the week, whereas ILO's guidelines prescribe that the statistics are to be compiled on the basis of fully unemployed persons

Sampling error

Not relevant for these statistics.

Non-sampling error

As the statistics is register based there is no uncertainty connected to the sample. In return the monthly statistics is known to be underestimated with 2-3 per cent. To be considered as registered unemployed you have to be recipient of either unemployment benefit or cash benefit or a similar benefit. Beside this delimitation the register based unemployment is very much in line with the international ILO-definition of unemployment.

Quality management

Statistics Denmark follows the recommendations on organisation and management of quality given in the Code of Practice for European Statistics (CoP) and the implementation guidelines given in the Quality Assurance Framework of the European Statistical System (QAF). A Working Group on Quality and a central quality assurance function have been established to continuously carry through control of products and processes.

Quality assurance

Statistics Denmark follows the principles in the Code of Practice for European Statistics (CoP) and uses the Quality Assurance Framework of the European Statistical System (QAF) for the implementation of the principles. This involves continuous decentralized and central control of products and processes based on documentation following international standards. The central quality assurance function reports to the Working Group on Quality. Reports include suggestions for improvement that are assessed, decided and subsequently implemented.

Quality assessment

The statistics is register based. To be considered as registered unemployed you have to be recipient of either unemployment benefit or cash benefit or a similar benefit. Beside this delimitation the register based unemployment is very much in line with the international ILO-definition of unemployment.

Data revision - policy

Statistics Denmark revises published figures in accordance with the Revision Policy for Statistics Denmark. The common procedures and principles of the Revision Policy are for some statistics supplemented by a specific revision practice.

Data revision practice

Every time new actual monthly figures for full-time unemployment are published the seasonally adjusted figures are adjusted backwards in time. The most recently adjusted seasonal figures are always available from StatBank Denmark. This also implies that the seasonally adjusted figures appearing in the publications will always be preliminary figures. The overall adjustment from "preliminary" to final seasonal figures is generally less than 1,000 unemployed full-time persons, or about 1 pct. The largest adjustments are seen for the latest 2-3 months and for the corresponding months of the previous year. Before the seasonal adjustments take place, the actual monthly figures are adjusted upwards as the result of deficiencies due to the late submission of unemployment benefit cards. The upward adjustment corresponds to about 3 pct. for the latest month, and is conducted in order to achieve greater consistency between the average of the 12 seasonally adjusted monthly figures and the actual updated annual average. Adjustments are made in accordance with the expected percentage for the last 2 months until the annual percentage can be finally compiled. The final updating of the actual monthly figures is conducted after 6 months, and subsequently they are regarded as final and are available from the database StatBank Denmark. As from January 2011, the grossed-up actual unemployment figures are also available from StatBank Denmark. The definition of this time series is that the final actual unemployment figures are combined (they are all at least 6 months old) with the grossed-up provisional actual unemployment figures for the most recent months.