Introduction
What is the APS and what is it used for?
The Annual Population Survey ( APS) combines results from the Labour Force Survey ( LFS) and the English, Welsh and Scottish Labour Force Survey boosts. The boosts increase the sample size which means the APS can provide more robust labour market estimates for local areas compared to the main LFS. Thus the APS is the primary source for information on local labour markets providing headline estimates on employment, unemployment and economic activity. The APS is the largest annual household survey in Scotland and provides a wealth of information about individuals' personal circumstances and their work.
Information from the APS is used by the Scottish Government to inform government targets and policies. Local authorities, Scottish Enterprise, Highlands & Islands Enterprise, Skills Development Scotland, Higher & Further Education sector include some of the many external users of the APS. Uses include monitoring targets, statistical analysis, policy development and briefing.
What topics are available?
A wide range of topics are included in the survey:
- Economic Activity (present or past)
- Employment in main job and second jobs
- Working conditions (hours, work pattern etc.)
- Reasons why people are not in the labour force
- Geographical mobility
- Education and training
- Health
- Childcare
- Income
- Individual and household characteristics
How and when is the survey conducted?
The Office for National Statistics ( ONS) carries out the LFS and associated boosts.
The APS datasets are based on calendar quarters and are produced quarterly on a rolling annual basis (covering 12 months of data). So the APS datasets cover the periods January to December, April to March, July to June and October to September.
The APS data use the existing continuous quarterly LFS in addition to annual enhancements. In the quarterly LFS, each person in a selected household is interviewed five times at 13-week intervals. In any three-month period, about a fifth of the sample are being interviewed for the first time, another fifth are receiving their second interview and so on with 20% who are being interviewed for the fifth and final time. Each of these roughly equal groups is termed a wave i.e. 'wave 1' refers to those people having their first interview.
Who takes part in the survey?
The LFS surveys individuals living at private households in the UK and is designed to be representative of the national population.
The Scottish Government funds the boost to the LFS sample in Scotland, taking the sample size from approximately 8,000 households each year to 23,000 households.
The target sample size in each local authority is 875 economically active adults except for Clackmannanshire (300); East Lothian (800); East Renfrewshire (800); Eilean Siar (200); Inverclyde (700); Midlothian (700); Orkney Islands (200); Shetland Islands (200); and Stirling (600).
How reliable are the results?
As survey results, these are subject to a degree of error and implied changes between years may not be significant and instead be within a given error range. Confidence limits for estimates should be taken into account, especially for changes over time. Annex B provides more information and confidence limits are included in the web tables for each indicator.