Confidence in the UK’s labour market statistics has suffered another setback after the Office for National Statistics (ONS) admitted an error that will affect the quality of key employment figures used by employers, economists and policymakers.
The ONS said around 1,200 telephone interviews that would normally contribute to next month’s labour market release were not conducted after interviewers were mistakenly assigned to the wrong survey.
As a result, the agency will have to replace missing responses with estimated values in its July labour market publication, potentially making it harder to identify changes in employment and unemployment trends.
Error affects key economic indicator
The Labour Force Survey is the UK’s official measure of employment, unemployment and economic inactivity. Its figures are closely watched by employers, the Bank of England and government departments when making decisions about hiring, pay and economic policy.
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James Benford, director-general for economic statistics at the ONS, was quoted in the Financial Times on Monday as saying the mistake occurred between early May and the middle of June and was not identified as quickly as it should have been.
The agency is now working to establish which households were missed and assess whether their absence could have affected the results.
According to Benford, replacing missing responses with estimates is likely to “artificially dampen” movements in the data, making it more difficult to determine whether employment conditions are improving or deteriorating.
Long-running concerns over labour market data
The latest issue comes as the ONS continues efforts to rebuild confidence in its labour market statistics following problems with falling survey response rates that emerged in 2023.
Those difficulties led the agency to temporarily suspend publication of some labour market estimates and prompted repeated concerns from the Bank of England about the reliability of employment data used to inform interest rate decisions.
The ONS is currently running both its existing Labour Force Survey and a replacement transformed survey simultaneously, a process Benford described as complex and resource-intensive.
He said the organisation had expanded its field workforce and expected to collect as many responses to the Labour Force Survey in July as it did before the pandemic, despite the latest setback.
Why employers should care
Reliable labour market data plays an important role in workforce planning, pay benchmarking and recruitment decision-making.
The admission comes just one day after the ONS published its latest labour market figures, which showed unemployment had fallen to 4.9 percent while vacancies dropped to their lowest level since 2021.
Questions over the quality of employment statistics are therefore likely to attract close attention from employers trying to assess recruitment conditions, skills shortages and wage pressures in the months ahead.
The ONS has said it will strengthen its processes to prevent similar mistakes and remains committed to improving the quality of its most important economic datasets.
William Furney is a Managing Editor at Black and White Trading Ltd based in Kingston upon Hull, UK. He is a prolific author and contributor at Workplace Wellbeing Professional, with over 127 published posts covering HR, employee engagement, and workplace wellbeing topics. His writing focuses on contemporary employment issues including pension schemes, employee health, financial struggles affecting workers, and broader workplace trends.
- William Furney
- William Furney
- William Furney
- William Furney
