Mary Harney
Ceist:27 Miss Harney asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the plans by the Central Statistics Office to introduce a more frequent labour force survey as a new method of calculating unemployment levels. [16477/96]
Written Answers. - Labour Force Survey.
The Government announced, at the end of June, that it was planning to introduce a quarterly multi-purpose household survey from the middle of 1997. The survey will replace the existing annual labour force survey and will cover labour force and other social topics.
The CSO is making the necessary preparations to begin the new quarterly survey in June 1997, following the completion of the April 1997 labour force survey, which will be the last of the traditional annual surveys.
The new survey will provide more frequent and more timely estimates of employment and unemployment. This is an important development, particularly following the publication of the CSO's study of differences between the labour force survey and the live register, which confirmed that the most consistent measures of unemployment are those based on the labour force survey.