National Statistical Institute

Labour Force Statistics Department

Tsveta Kostova - Sevastiyanova

Stanislava Statkova

Daniela Marinkova

Vladimir Stanoykov

Tsvetanka Zivripanova

Head of department

State expert

Chief expert

Chief expert

Senior expert

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

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

(+359 2) 9857 619

(+359 2) 9857 664

(+359 2) 9857 132

(+359 2) 9857 549

(+359 2) 9857 469

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 2025 a subject on reconciliation of work and family life was incorporated in the regular Labour force survey. The subject on reconciliation of work and family life was jointly financed by the NSI and by the European Commission under a signed agreement between the two institutions.

The aim of the module "Reconciliation of work and family life" is to provide more detailed and comparable information at the European level on childcare, care for relatives who are ill, frail or with disabilities, flexibility of work arrangements and career breaks related to caregiving.

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

Persons aged 18 to 74 years.

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

Concepts and definitions for the module "Reconciliation of work and family life": 

Children are defined as the respondent's own or partner's/spouse's children under 15 years of age.

Professional childcare services are defined as all forms of care organised by private or public structures like the so-called centre-based pre-schools, nursery schools, day care centres and crèches, kindergartens or afterschool centres. Also included is organised family care (e.g. au pair) or care by professional childminders arranged with an intermediate service or directly employed by the family.

Other household members, relatives, friends or neighbours who look after children without the professional aspect, are informal care and should not be counted as professional childcare services.

Care responsibilities for children consist of personal care - support during bathing, dressing and eating, helping with homework, playing games, reading books, accompanying children to and/or from school or childcare facilities, talking, providing emotional support, and assistance.

Care for children living outside the household is also included, if it is provided on a regular basis, meaning at least some hours per week.

Care responsibilities for relatives consist of regular unpaid care for relatives aged 15 years and over who are ill, frail and/or with disabilities. Care may include personal care (bathing, dressing, eating), accompanying them outside the home or assisting with physical activities, help with household tasks (shopping, cooking, laundry, cleaning), assistance with completing documents or paying bills, conversation, reading newspapers or books, and companionship.

Relatives include also the partner/spouse and own or partner’s/spouse's children aged 15 years and over. Care responsibilities for children or relatives do not include financial support only or care provided for payment (i.e., as paid employment).

Persons living in non-institutional households.

Total population usually residing in Bulgaria, except persons living in collective households. The module "Reconciliation of work and family life" refers to persons aged 18 to 74 years.

The whole territory of Republic of Bulgaria.

2025

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) 2022/2312 of 25 November 2022 on eight-yearly variables in the labour force domain on ‘young people on the labour market’, ‘educational attainment – details, including education interrupted or abandoned’ and ‘reconciliation of work and family life’ pursuant to 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.

The confidentiality of personal data is ensured in accordance with:

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 "Reconciliation of work and family life" are disseminated on the NSI website on 16 October 2026.

The calendar is available on the NSI website: https://www.nsi.bg/en/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.

Every eight years.

Not available.

Not available.

The main results from the module "Reconciliation of work and family life" are available to all users on the NSI website under the heading Statistical Data - Demographic and Social Statistics - Labour Market - Labour Force Survey - Annual data: https://www.nsi.bg/en/statistical-data/168/1372

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/en/metadata/labour-force-survey-120;

Questionnaire for the module „Reconciliation of work and family life“;

Interviewers’ instructions for the module „Reconciliation of work and family life“;

Eurostat’s Explanatory notes for the variables on reconciliation of work and family life.

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 2025 module "Reconciliation of work and family life" is also prepared in line with Eurostat requirements.

The main users of LFS statistical data are:

International organisations:

- European Commission - DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion and other Directorates;

 - Eurostat - Labour market and skills unit and other units;

- European Central Bank;

- OECD;

- International Labour Organisation;

- UNESCO;

- UNICEF.

National users:

- Ministries and State agencies;

- Bulgarian National Bank;

- Trade Unions;

- Employers’ organisations;

- Non-governmental organisations;

- Research institutions;

- Companies, agencies - for own marketing researches and consultancy activities research institutions.

Not available.

The module „Reconciliation of work and family life" covers all compulsory variables according Commission implementing regulation (EU) 2022/2312 of 25 November 2022 on eight-yearly variables in the labour force domain on ‘young people on the labour market’, ‘educational attainment - details, including education interrupted or abandoned’ and ‘reconciliation of work and family life’ pursuant to 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 0.68% sampling rate). The module "Reconciliation of work and family life" 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 "Reconciliation of work and family life" is 1.3% (of persons responded in regular LFS).

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

The main results from the module "Reconciliation of work and family life" are presented on 16 October 2026.

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.

Data from the module 2025 "Reconciliation of work and family life" could slightly differ from the similar yearly data from the Labour force survey for 2025 due to use of subsample for data collection for the module.

The average duration of interview on the module 2025 "Reconciliation of work and family life" is about 9 minutes per respondent.

Not applicable.

A module integrated with the Labour force survey.

Every eight years.

Data for the module "Reconciliation of work and family life" are collected using a 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.

Data collection and initial control are carried out by NSI regional offices.

Data files are received by NSI, where additional control and weighting is doing at national level. Data are aggregated by different variables (characteristics), tabulated and disseminated.

Not applicable.