STEP Skills Measurement Employer Survey 2013 (Wave 2)
Armenia, 2013
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ARM_2013_STEP-EMP_v01_M
STEP Skills Measurement Employer Survey 2013 (Wave 2)
| Name | Country code |
|---|---|
| Armenia | ARM |
These surveys are part of the STEP Employer collection. So far, two waves have been implemented in six countries. The third wave is underway.
The first wave started in October 2011 and was completed in December 2013. Sri Lanka, Vietnam, the Yunnan Province in China, and Azerbaijan were Wave 1 countries.
The second wave started in August 2013 and was completed in June 2014. Armenia and Georgia were Wave 2 countries.
The STEP (Skills Toward Employment and Productivity) Measurement program is the first ever initiative to generate internationally comparable data on skills available in developing countries. The program implements standardized surveys to gather information on the supply and distribution of skills and the demand for skills in labor market of low-income countries.
The uniquely designed modules in the Employer Survey aim to assess the structure of the labor force; the skills (cognitive skills, behavior and personality traits, and job-relevant skills) currently being used; the skills that employers look for when hiring new workers; the propensity of firms to provide training (including satisfaction with education, training, and levels of specific skills) and the link between skills and compensation and promotion. The survey also captures background characteristics (size, legal form, industry, full time vs. non-standard employment and occupational breakdown), performance (revenues, wages and other costs, profits and scope of market), key labor market challenges and their ranking relative to other challenges, and job skill requirements of the firms being interviewed.
The questionnaire can be adapted to address a sample of firms in both informal and formal sectors, with varying sizes and industry classifications.
Sample survey data [ssd]
The units of analysis are establishments and workplaces – a single location at which one or more employees work. The larger legal entity may include multiple establishments.
Version
Version 01, edited anonymous dataset(s) for public distribution
Scope
The scope of the study includes:
- Firm background
- Basic characteristics of a firm workforce
- Skills used by current workforce
- New hires (job-related skills, personality traits, hiring procedures)
- Training
- Compensation
Coverage
Capital Yerevan and other urban areas
The universe of the study are non-government businesses registered with Armenia Social Security State Agency from 2012, with at least five employees in the following sectors: food processing, fishing, mining, manufacturing, electricity, gas and waterworks, construction, wholesale, retail trade, repair of motor vehicles, motorcycle and household goods, hotels and restaurants, transportation, financial services, real estate.
Producers and sponsors
| Name |
|---|
| World Bank |
| Name | Affiliation | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Alexandria Valerio | Education Global Practice, World Bank | STEP Co-Task Team Leader |
| Maria Laura Sanchez Puerta | Social Protection and Labor Global Practice, World Bank | STEP Co-Task Team Leader |
| Tania Rajadel | World Bank Consultant, Project Coordinator | Technical assistance in project management, data collection, data processing and data analysis |
| Gaelle Pierre | World Bank Consultant, Senior Labor Economist | Technical assistance in project management, data collection, data processing and data analysis |
| Owen Powers | World Bank Consultant, Survey Consultant | Technical assistance in questionnaire design, sampling methodology, and data collection |
| Valerie Evans | World Bank Consultant, Survey Consultant | Technical assistance in questionnaire design, sampling methodology, and data collection |
| Sebastian Monroy Taborda | World Bank Consultant, Research Analyst | Technical assistance in data processing and data analysis |
| Name |
|---|
| Multi-Donor Trust Fund Labor Markets, Job Creation and Economic Growth |
| Bank Netherlands Partnership Program |
Sampling
The sampling objective of the survey was to obtain interviews from 400 non-government enterprise workplaces in the capital and urban regions of Armenia. Firms with less than five employees were excluded from the target population.
Two-stage stratified random sampling was used in the survey. A list of businesses registered with Armenia Social Security State Agency from 2012 served as the sampling frame.
Detailed information about sampling is available in Armenia Employer Survey Design Planning Report and Armenia Employer Survey Weighting Procedure, provided as external resources.
An overall response rate of 36% was achieved in Armenia STEP Survey. Detailed distribution of responses by stratum can be found in Armenia Employer Survey Weighting Procedure (Table 4), available as an external resource.
To account for differential probabilities of selection due to the nature of the design and to ensure accurate survey estimates, Armenia Employer Survey requires a sampling weight for each participating firm within each stratum and a sampling weight for each participating workplace within each stratum.
In general, the objectives of the Armenia Employer Survey weighting are to construct a set of survey weights to compensate for unequal probabilities of selection and to compensate for workplace-level non-response.
The general weighting procedure for the Armenia Employer Survey required the following tasks:
-
Preparation of a data file to input into the weighting process;
-
Weight calculation:
- calculation of a firm weight for each sampled firm
- calculation of a workplace weight for each sampled workplace
- calculation of a workplace-level non-response adjustment independently for each stratum;
- The required output from the weighting process is a final Armenia data file with the final survey weights (i.e., for each sampled firm and workplace) appended to each data record.
Survey instrument
STEP Employer Survey Questionnaire has five sections:
Section 1 - Work Force
Section 2 - Skills Used
Section 3 - Hiring Practices
Section 4 -Training and Compensation
Section 5 - Background
In Armenia, the questionnaire was adapted to the Armenian context and published in English and Armenian.
Data collection
| Start | End |
|---|---|
| 2013-02-11 | 2013-06-03 |
| Name |
|---|
| Caucasus Research Resource Center for Armenia |
The data collection team consisted of two teams with a total of 20 interviewers and two Regional Supervisors. The regional supervisors were responsible for reporting to the Fieldwork Manager. Each interviewer reported to a Regional Supervisor.
Regional Supervisors’ responsibilities included:
- Coordinating fieldwork in the assigned region
- Full-time work with the interviewers and on-going monitoring of interviewers’ work
- Checking non-response, activation of reserves, problems encountered, and communicating regularly with the Field Manager
- Submitting questionnaires and fieldwork tracking forms to Headquarters
For quality control, Team Supervisors were responsible for:
- At least one meeting per week with each interviewer to discuss progress and/or problems
- Random spot visits during interviewers’ work to observe interviews. For each interview observed, team supervisors have to provide a 1-page evaluation report
- Follow-up of non-response cases and document all relevant information
- Checking each accepted questionnaire for completeness and accuracy before submitting to Headquarters.
Interviewer visit verification:
- The team supervisors revisited 15% of each interviewer’s assigned firms. Telephone calls were permitted for up to one-third of the revisits. The firms to revisit were selected randomly by the Field Manager or Headquarters.
Each component of the STEP Employer Survey in Armenia was carried out by a personal visit using a Paper-and-Pencil Interview (PAPI) method. The implementation language was Armenian.
Because STEP program requires all surveys to be implemented in a standardized way, particular attention was provided to implementation processes:
-
Each participating country (survey firm) wrote Employer Survey Design Planning Report (ESDPR) detailing how it intended to implement the STEP survey while complying with the STEP Technical Standards. The ESDPRs were submitted to the World Bank (WB) STEP team for approval.
-
The WB STEP team provided training to all survey firms. The 2-day training provided via video conference aimed at presenting the STEP Technical Standards and Train the Trainers. The training course aimed at project managers from each survey firm focused on the survey instruments, as well as on implementation and data management procedures.
-
Based on the STEP Technical Standards, the survey firms adapted and translated the STEP Employer survey instruments, the Interviewer Manual, and all training materials.
-
Once the instruments had been adapted and translated, survey firms carried out a pre-test, usually including 8-10 interviews. Findings from the pre-test were discussed with the WB STEP team to finalize the adaptation and translation of the STEP survey instruments.
-
Each survey firm provided a 4-day training course to its enumerators, using training materials developed by the WB STEP team (after translation and adaptation). The WB STEP team's Survey Consultant helped organize the training. In addition, the WB STEP team in Washington, D.C. provided just-in-time technical assistance, answering questions sent by the survey firm during the training. The training included in-field mock interviews in addition to in-class courses. At the end of the training, survey firms only retained enumerators having demonstrated a good understanding of the instruments.
-
As per STEP technical standards, data collection started within a few days of the end of the enumerators' training course. The composition of each country's fieldwork teams is described in the ESDPR, as well as reporting procedures and quality control processes. Weekly reports were sent to the WB STEP team, which provided just-in-time technical assistance during fieldwork to answer questions or concerns. Regular calls or VCs were also held between survey firms and the WB STEP team to discuss progress. Matters discussed usually involved questions on how to deal with specific situations, strategies to reduce non-response, the activation of reserve firms, and general pace of progress.
Non-response rates were high in Armenia, in part due to unreliable address information in the sample frame and perceived connection of the survey to the Armenia Tax Service, which is not well trusted.
- Interviews lasted between 60 and 70 minutes.
Data processing
STEP Data Management Process:
-
Raw data is sent by the survey firm.
-
The World Bank (WB) STEP team runs data checks on the Questionnaire data. Comments and questions are sent back to the survey firm.
-
The survey firm reviews comments and questions. When a data entry error is identified, the survey firm corrects the data.
-
The WB STEP team again check to make sure the data files are clean. This might require additional iterations with the survey firm.
-
Once the data has been checked and cleaned, the WB STEP team computes the weights. Weights are computed by the STEP team to ensure consistency across sampling methodologies.
Depositor information
| Name | Affiliation |
|---|---|
| JOBS - CCSA - IBRD | World Bank |
Data Access
Use of the dataset must be acknowledged using a citation which would include:
- the Identification of the Primary Investigator
- the title of the survey (including country, acronym and year of implementation)
- the survey reference number
- the source and date of download
Example:
World Bank. Armenia STEP Skills Measurement Employer Survey 2013 (Wave 2). Ref. ARM_2013_STEP-EMP_v01_M. Dataset downloaded from [URL] on [date].
Disclaimer and copyrights
The user of the data acknowledges that the original collector of the data, the authorized distributor of the data, and the relevant funding agency bear no responsibility for use of the data or for interpretations or inferences based upon such uses.
Metadata production
DDI_ARM_2013_STEP-EMP_v01_M_WB
| Name | Affiliation | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Development Data Group | World Bank | Documentation of the study |
| JOBS - CCSA - IBRD | World Bank | Documentation of the study |
2016-02-12
Metadata version
v01 (February 2016)