Labour Force Survey

The Faroese labour force survey is an annual sample survey conducted in accordance with the general guidelines and definitions from the International Labour Organization (ILO) under the United Nations. Thus the statistics are comparable to the labour force surveys from other countries found in the Eurostat database. 

The main statistical objective of the survey is to classify people according to their activities during a short specified reference period. There are three categories that are mutually exclusive and together cover the whole target population of the survey:

• In the labour force: 
  • Employed people are defined as those who during the reference period worked for minimum one hour for wage or salary, or profit or family gain, in cash or in kind. Persons temporarily  not at work also count as employed, if they have a formal attachment to their job. 
  • Unemployed people are defined as those who in the reference period were without a job, actively seeking work and fully available to the job market within two weeks. 
• Outside the labour force are individuals who during the reference period were not part of the labour force, meaning they were neither employed nor unemployed. This set of people are also called the ‘inactive population’. 

Statistical scope

The international guidelines prescribe that the survey should comprise all permanent residents of a country within the 15-74 age group. In the Faroese labour force survey, the labour force status of the majority of the survey population is identified  by using public registers that can identify employed persons (employees, employers and self-employed) and unemployed persons. The remaining 9,500 persons not found in the registers are estimated based on a sample of 1,300 people from the group using telephone interviews. The labour force survey is conducted in the end of November each year estimating the labour force status for the week containing 15 November. 

Prior to 2015 the Faroese data relies solely on telephone surveys as nothing was register based. 

Note that the unemployment in this survey is not comparable with the other unemployment published by Statistics Faroe Islands as they are based on records from the Unemployment insurance system (ALS) and the The Department of Social Services.

Definitions:

• Labour Force is the definition for the active population and includes employed and unemployed people.
• Population is the total number of people in working age (ie. 15 to 74 years)   
• Activity rate is the labour force in % of the population in working age (ie. 15 to 74 years)   
• Employement rate is employed in % of the population in working age (ie. 15 to 74 years)   
• Unemployment rate is unemployed in % of the labour force  
• Payment-in-kind is the use of goods or services as payment instead of cash.
• EA refers to the euro area with a fixed area composition of the current 20 countries (2023). 
• EU is the European Union with a fixed area composition of the current 27 countries (2020).