National Statistical Institute

Labour Force Statistics Department

Tsveta Kostova-Sevastiyanova

Stanislava Statkova

Head of department

State expert

2, P. Volov Str., 1038 Sofia, Bulgaria

[email protected]

[email protected]

(+359 2) 9857 619

(+359 2) 9857 664

The Labour Force Survey is a sample statistical survey carried out through households. The main purpose of the survey is to provide data on labour status of population aged 15 years and over and for the main characteristics of employed, unemployed and persons out of labour force in the Republic of Bulgaria. In 2022 an ad-hoc subject on job skills was incorporated in the regular Labour force survey. The ad-hoc subject on job skills was jointly financed by the NSI and by the European Commission under a signed agreement between the two institutions.

The classifications used in the Labour Force Survey are harmonised with the international classifications in terms of economic activities, occupations, educational attainment. The main classifications used are the following:

• International Standard Classification of Education, 2011 version (ISCED 2011);
• Classification of Economic Activities - 2008, which is a Bulgarian version of NACE, Rev. 2 -  since 2008;
• National Classification of Occupations - 2011 (1st digit - occupational class), comparable to the International Standard Classification of Occupations-ISCO ’08 - since 1 January 2011.

Persons aged 15 to 74 years who are currently in employment or who left their last employment in the last 24 months.

The Labour Force Survey provides estimates of the main characteristics of labour market as employment, unemployment, inactivity, occupations, economic activities, working time and other, as well as social-demographic characteristics as sex, age, place of residence (urban/rural), education etc.

The main definitions applied in the survey are in accordance with the recommendation of International Labour Organisation and EU legislation.

The results from the module “Job Skills” allow to estimate jobs that are at risk of automation and the job tasks of persons in employment. In particular data from the module give the information for:

 - Proportion of working time in the main job, spent on:

• working on digital devices - computers, tablets and smartphones
• doing relatively complex calculations - more complex computations than those that only involve integer numbers, i.e. calculations involving percentages involving fractions, percentages, etc. (proportions, interest rates, indexes), fractions, data analysis, statistics or econometric models etc. that may involve the use of a calculator or software
• tasks involving finger dexterity in main or last job
• doing hard physical work or working in painful or tiring positions
• interaction with people from the same enterprise or organisation from outside

 - Autonomy on tasks - the extent that persons can influence on the order and the content (methods, tools) of the tasks;

 - Repetitiveness of tasks and the availability of strictly defined procedures that persons have to follow in order to accomplish work tasks.

Persons living in non-institutional households.

Total population usually residing in Bulgaria, except persons living in collective households. The module “Job skills” refers to persons aged 15 to 74 years who are currently in employment or who left their last employment in the last 24 months.

The whole territory of Republic of Bulgaria.

2022

Not applicable.

Number of persons in thousands.

For every person in the sample the reference period is one calendar week (from Monday to Sunday). The sample is evenly spread over the all 13 calendar weeks within each quarter. 

The concepts and definitions applied in the Labour Force Survey are in line with:

• Recommendation of the International Labour Organisation;
• Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2020/1642 of 5 November 2020 specifying the technical items of the data set for the 2022 ad hoc subject ‘job skills’ and the eight-yearly variables on ‘pension and labour market participation’ in the labour force domain in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2019/1700 of the European Parliament and of the Council;
• Regulation (EU) 2019/1700 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 10 October 2019 establishing a common framework for European statistics relating to persons and households, based on data at individual level collected from samples;
• Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/2240 of 16 December 2019 specifying the technical items of the data set, establishing the technical formats for transmission of information and specifying the detailed arrangements and content of the quality reports on the organisation of a sample survey in the labour force domain in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2019/1700 of the European Parliament and of the Council;
• Law on Statistics.

Not applicable.

• Law on Statistics;
• Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 2009 on European statistics (provision 24 and Article 20 (4)) (OJ L 87, p. 164), stipulates the necessity to establish common principles and guidelines ensuring the confidentiality of data used for the production of European statistics and the access to those confidential data with due account for technical developments and the requirements of users in a democratic society.

Individual anonymous data provided for the purposes of scientific research do not consist any administrative data as personal information and address and do not allow direct identification. Additional aggregation of data is performed for some of the variables.

In accordance with Article 25 of the Law on Statistics Individual data are not published. Dissemination of individual data is possible only in accordance with Article 26 of the Law on Statistics.

The main results from the LFS module on job skills are disseminated on the NSI website on 6 July 2023.

 The calendar is available on the NSI website: https://www.nsi.bg/en/content/44/basic-page/release-calendar

Accessibility of all users to statistical data and equality of their rights are stipulated in the Regulation for dissemination of statistical products and services by the National Statistical Institute.

Data are disseminated on the NSI website, section “Labour Market” in line with the Law of Statistics and European Statistics Code of Practice respecting professional independence and in an objective, professional and transparent manner in which all users are treated equitably.

One-off

Not available.

Not available.

The main results from the ad hoc module "Job skills" are available for all users at the NSI website, section “Labour Market”, Labour Force Survey, Annual data: https://www.nsi.bg/en/content/20585/ 

Individual anonymous micro-data could be provided for scientific research purposes by individual request according to the Regulation of submission of anonymous individual data for scientific and research purposes.

An information service could be provided by request, according to the Rules for Dissemination of Statistical Information Products and Services.

• Labour force survey methodology: https://www.nsi.bg/sites/default/files/files/metadata/LFS_Methodology_EN.pdf;
• Questionnaire for the module “Job skills”;
• Interviewers’ instructions for the module “Job skills”;
• Eurostat’s Explanatory notes for the variables on job skills.

Ensuring the quality of Labour force survey and its modules is according to the policy and Quality Management Programme of NSI.

Quality report on the Labour Force Survey is prepared each year. Quality report on the 2022 module on job skills is also prepared in line with Eurostat requirements.

The main users of LFS statistical data are:

International organisations:

Not available.

The module “Job skills” covers all compulsory variables according Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2020/1642 of 5 November 2020 specifying the technical items of the data set for the 2022 ad hoc subject ‘job skills’ and the eight-yearly variables on ‘pension and labour market participation’ in the labour force domain in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2019/1700 of the European Parliament and of the Council.

The sample used for the Labour force survey is a two-stage stratified cluster sample, which includes quarterly about 19.6 thousand households (representing about 0.65% sampling rate). The module on job skills was carried out over a part (25%) of the LFS sample in each quarter and consisted of the households from the third wave. Due to the sampling approach used in the Labour force survey, the estimation of the parameters obtained from the survey could vary from those in the population due to sampling errors, errors due to non-response, errors in registration or processing etc..

Coefficients of variation (relative standard errors), and confidence intervals (i.e. the range of values that 95% of times would capture the true value in the population) are calculated for assessment of stochastic reliability of the estimates for main indicators.

The non-response rate for the module “Job skills” is 0.2% (of persons responded in regular LFS). 

The main results from the LFS modules are published about 6 months after the reference year.

The main results from the module “Job skills” are presented on 6 July 2023.

Comparability across EU Member States is considered high due to use of harmonised concepts, variables, definitions and classifications.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Some of the totals (rows and columns) in tables could slightly differ from the sum of the components because of the rounding of figures.

The average duration of interview on the module “Job skills” is about 10 minutes. 

Revisions of previously released data are usually not performed. By exception, revisions may happen after new estimates of population from a Population Census became available.

A module integrated with the Labour force survey.

One-off

Data for the ad-hoc module “Job skills” are collected using a paper or electronic questionnaire by conducting a personal interview with persons from the selected households immediately after the interview on the core Labour Force Survey.

Plausibility checks are performed during the data entry. Additional consistency checks are carried out before publishing of data.

The completed paper questionnaires are еntered into computer in NSI regional offices.

Data files are sent to NSI, where additional control and weighting is doing. Data are aggregated by different variables (characteristics), tabulated and disseminated.

Not applicable.