Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Council Regulation (EC) No 577/98 on the organisation of a labour force sample survey in the Community

The EU Labour Force Survey (LFS) is the biggest household survey in Europe. The results it produces on employment, unemployment and persons outside the labour market form the backbone of the statistical information system on labour markets in the European Union. In particular, the LFS provides the indicators for three of the Europe 2020 headline targets.

The national statistical institutes are responsible for selecting the sample, preparing the questionnaires, conducting the direct interviews among households, and forwarding the results to Eurostat in accordance with the common coding scheme.

Each year, the core LFS is supplemented with a so-called ad hoc module. While the core part of the survey is of equal interest at national and European levels, the annually changing ad hoc modules serve predominantly European policy initiatives, amongst them the European Employment Strategy, the Youth on the Move flagship initiative, the Strategy for Equality between Women and Men, the European agenda for integration and the Employment Package.

The sustainable production of high-quality ad hoc module data is of utmost importance to EU decision-makers, and thus a provision on financing is proposed to be integrated into the Regulation.

EUR-Lex: COM(2013)155: Follow the progress of this proposal through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2013:155:FIN

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