Interviewer instructions
For persons 10 years old or older
(Apply to questions 14 to 25)
The questions that form this Section are meant to get information about the participation of the population 10 years old or older in the economic activities of this country.
The questions relating to the chapter are applied to the situation existing in the week immediately before the day of the Census (reference week). Reference week is defined below:
Definition of "Reference Week" or "Last Week": It is the complete calendar week, from Sunday to Saturday that, for census purposes goes from May 4, 1980 to May 10, 1980.
The answers obtained in question 13 are the basis for classifying the population of persons 10 years old or older as:
1. Economically active (employed and unemployed).
2. Not economically active (homemaker, student, disabled, retired, pensioner, rentier, others inactive).
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1. Economically active population
This group is understood to be the population of 10 years old or older who supply the workforce available for the production of goods and services of the country and is divided into Employed and Unemployed.
1.1 Employed Population: is understood to be persons who:
a) Have an occupation or job remunerated in money or in kind, during the reference week.
b) Have a private business or job on their own account. Example: The owner of a grocery store, the farmer, the lawyer who has his own practice, etc.
c) Works regularly in a business or company of a member of their family even when not drawing a wage or salary (Contributing family worker).
d) Sell tickets, newspapers, or any other article; make food to sell; wash cars; shine shoes; sew in their house for others; the kind of work, time worked or amount of money that they receive during the reference week does not matter.
e) Have a steady remunerated job but do not work during the reference week because of temporary circumstances: sickness or accident; vacation; work conflicts such as: bad weather; machine breakdowns, strike, on leave, etc.
1.2 Unemployed population: This group constitutes persons who do not have a remunerated occupation or job during reference week, but:
a) Have worked before and look for work (visits employment agencies or offices in search of work, consults friends about the availability of work, is relying on ads in newspapers, that is to say, makes the effort with the goal of finding employment).
[p. 81]
b) Are not looking for work because they have a job that will begin on a previously appointed date.
c) Look for their first job or that is "New Workers". The oldest age for a "New Worker" is 45.
2. Not economically active population
This group is understood to be the flowing persons:
2.1 Homemaker: The person who is dedicated only and exclusively to domestic tasks and chores in their own home and were not looking for work, nor were they retired, pensioned, living on investments, or attending school. In a dwelling there can be more than one homemaker.
2.2 Student: The person who is dedicated exclusively to studying.
2.3 Invalid: The person who is found to be physically or mentally impeded from working.
2.4 Retired: The person who has stopped working and is receiving retirement income.
2.5 Pensioned, rentier: The person who receives auxiliary or pensioned income (pensioned). Equally include in this group all the persons who without working receive money or investments from a business or company (rentier). Do not include persons who receive pension for food, divorce, etc.
2.6 Retired without benefits: Include in this group the persons who in some opportunity had a job but currently are separated from all type of economic activity without receiving retirement benefits or a pension.
2.7 Other condition: The person who without being classified in any of the groups above does not do any economic activity and remains idle.
When classifying the population, special care should be taken with the persons of the female sex who declare themselves to be "Homemaker" and those who declare themselves to be [p. 82] students. In the first case they sometimes also do remunerated jobs like: cleaning, ironing, sewing, styling hair, painting fingernails, making candy etc. in their own home or outside it but because they spend little time in these labors they forget to give this information.
On the other hand, some students after class or on weekends dedicate themselves to cleaning shoes, selling newspapers, washing cars etc. Equal care should be taken with the spouse or companion or the children of farm families, who regularly help with the agricultural labors but do not declare this job.
For reasons already explained, it is necessary that before classifying the population, the enumerator investigates more to find out if the parson did some work during the reference week. If is made known that the person worked during this period, even when it was part time, it should be classified as Employed, that corresponds to the population who is Economically Active.
Question 15 Were you looking for work last week?
Mark the corresponding box according to the response of the person.
