ONS vacancy survey
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) Vacancy Survey is a monthly business survey that provides comprehensive estimates of job vacancies across the economy. Vacancies are defined as positions for which employers are actively seeking recruits from outside their business. Each month's headline estimates are based on three-month rolling averages, with analysis by broad industry sector and by size of business. Monthly estimates of total vacancies are also published.
The survey has been running since April 2001, with the first experimental results published on the National Statistics website in September 2002. The results were accepted as National Statistics in June 2003 and since that date they have been published in the monthly labour market statistics First Release.
Approximately 6,000 enterprises in Great Britain are surveyed on a specific date each month. In common with the majority of ONS business surveys, the sample is obtained from the Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR), stratified by industry and number of people employed. One quarter of the sample consists of large businesses or organisations that are included every month. The remaining 4,500 are smaller and are sampled randomly on a quarterly basis. Smaller businesses remain in the survey for five or nine quarters (depending on the size of the business).
The survey covers all industrial sectors except agriculture, forestry and fishing. This is because of the disproportionate additional costs involved and the special difficulties of measuring vacancies in these industry sectors which mainly consist of very small firms (mostly with no vacancies). It is common practice to exclude these sectors from vacancy surveys in other countries. The UK approach is consistent with EU requirements. Completion of the survey is compulsory under the Statistics of Trade Act 1947.
The survey covers businesses in Great Britain only, although estimates for the UK are derived by grossing up the data for Great Britain, along with information about employment in Northern Ireland. Businesses in Northern Ireland are not surveyed because of the risk of overlap with responses to other surveys conducted by Northern Ireland departments.
As the data from the survey show strong and stable seasonal patterns, they are now being published on a seasonally adjusted basis. Results are published forty days after the survey data are collected. All results are comparable over time, dating back to the first published month. The unadjusted data series are also available.
The Vacancy Survey provides a consistent estimate of the total number of vacancies in the UK economy and is a leading indicator of the labour market. This information cannot be obtained from an alternative source, such as statistics of vacancies notified to Jobcentres, which provides only part of the picture and may not indicate developments in labour demand, due to changes to Jobcentre Plus procedures for taking and handling vacancies. The Jobcentre vacancies can however, be analysed in more detail than the survey results, for example by local area and by occupation.
