DDI_BTN_2012_LFS_v01_M_WB <_value> NADA Labour Force Survey 2012 LFS 2012 BTN_2012_LFS_v01_M Labour Market Information & Research Division (LMIRD), Department of Employment National Statistics Bureau NADA Labor Force Survey [hh/lfs] The 2012 Labour Force Survey is the 10th LFS conducted in Bhutan. The Labour Force Survey (LFS) had been incepted since 1998. From 2003, it has become a regular activity of MoLHR. The Department of Employment will from now on conduct the Labour Force Survey annually to enable the Ministry to assess the current and emerging labour situation in the country. The Survey was conducted with the aim to provide reliable and timely labour market information on the labour situation of the country at particular point of time. The stability and growth of the country’s economy depends on the proper execution of plans and programs. For this purpose, it is necessary to have a clear knowledge and understanding of the size, composition and economic characteristics of the population. Therefore, it is imperative to know and monitor the growth of human resources categorized by its respective demographic features and educational level on a timely basis. Labour Force Survey is a regular activity of the Labour Market Information & Research Division (LMIRD) of the Department of Employment. It is conducted with a moving reference period i.e one week prior to date of interview. This is the 10th nationwide Labour Force Survey covering a national representative sample of 12,000 households (urban=9000 & rural=3000). The survey covered more households in the urban areas since urban population is more heterogeneous and the economic activities prevailing in the same are quite diverse. Broadly the objective of the survey is to generate the following: - Percentage of economically active population; - Labour force participation rate; - Status of active population in number (employed + unemployed); - The labour force available in the country by age group, sex, level of education, nationality, marital status, area of residence, by industrial and occupational classification, hours of work and; - The survey also provides information on main and subsidiary economic activities and women’s participation in the total labour force. It also reveals the labour situation especially the young generation entering labour market and unemployment problem. Bhutan The survey covered all the 20 Dzongkhags out of which 200 sampled Chiwogs in the rural areas and 272 sampled blocks in the urban areas. The foreign nationals and those members who were temporarily absent from the households but living in the institutions like school, hostels, army barracks, hospital and prisons were included as household members to increase the precision for population estimation. Concurrently, the survey excluded those members who were absent from the household for more than six months to avoid double counting since they would be counted as household members of the current household they reside with. Sample survey data [ssd] Universe: The universe for the National Labour Force Survey 2012 consists of all the urban and rural areas of Bhutan i.e all the 20 Dzongkhags Sampling Frame: The sampling frame has been developed by the National Statistics Bureau. Each town in a Dzongkhag has been divided into numerous enumeration blocks. The block for the urban has been demarcated by the Department of Urban and Housing Development, Ministry of Works and Human Settlement. Enumeration blocks for urban and Chiwogs for rural have been considered as Primary Sampling Unit (PSUs). The households in both urban and rural were considered as Secondary Sampling Unit (SSUs). Stratification Plan: Each Dzongkhag is considered as primary stratum and the stratifying factors used were the geographical demarcation of the administrative boundaries. There were two sub-strata namely urban and rural. Sampling Design: A stratified two-stage sampling method has been adopted for the survey as follows. a. Selection of primary sampling units (PSUs): The blocks and the Chiwogs have been taken as the PSUs in urban and rural respectively. In both the urban and rural areas the blocks and Chiwogs were selected with the assignment of Probability Proportional to Size (PPS). b. Selection of secondary sampling units (SSUs): The households in the sampled blocks and Chiwogs were considered as SSUs. A fixed number of sampled households have been selected from the selected PSU’s by Circular Systematic Sampling (CSS) method after listing the households present in blocks and Chiwogs exhaustively. Sample size and its allocation: With the resources at our disposal, the nature of population distribution and the variability of characteristics for which the estimates are to be made, a sample of 12000 households have been found appropriate to provide reliable estimate of key labour force characteristics. It is also based on the past experiences. Face-to-face [f2f] The questionnaire used for 10th National Labour Force Survey 2012 is the revised form of the National Labour Force Survey 2011 questionnaire. The questionnaire had been reviewed by officials of the Labour Market Information & Research Division. The questionnaire has been pre-tested and checked for its reliability to ensure its precision in capturing good data and information. The questionnaire comprises two parts, namely, the demographic characteristics and economic characteristics. The economic characteristics is collected only from those persons aged 15 years and above as per the International Labour Organization (ILO) definition of working age population. Field Operation: For maintaining the conformity of survey concepts, definitions and procedure to be used during enumeration, training for a week was imparted to the concerned supervisors and enumerators on interviewing techniques and survey procedures. For quality control, supervisors made frequent visits to the field for spot- checking during data collection. Method of data collection: Data have been collected by direct interview method. There were 64 enumerators, 8 supervisors and one field coordinator for duration of 33 days. The survey was launched with representative sample size of 12,000 (9.3%) households out of 131,194 total households. Out of 12000 households, 236 were found as non-response accounting for 1.97%. One major source of non-sampling error is non-response. Non-response is caused due to absence of occupants in the sample house, due to total refusal to answer any of the questions and sometimes when the interviewee is incapable to answer.