Transitions in the labour market

How to interpret statistics on labour market transitions Methodological information The figures presented here are the result of the Labour Force Survey (EAK), a survey harmonised at European level. The definitions on employment and unemployment used are those of the International Labour Office (IAB), thus ensuring comparability of results at international level. We distinguish between three IAB labour market statutes: working, unemployed and inactive. The definitions used are here. Note that temporary unemployed who are temporarily absent from work (i.e. less than three months) are counted among the workers. Temporary unemployed who are absent for more than three months (‘long-term unemployed’) are counted among the unemployed or inactive, depending on the answers to the questions concerning job search and availability. The Labour Force Survey is a continuous survey, which means that the sample is evenly distributed over the 52 weeks of the year. The selected respondents respond to a questionnaire that mainly relates to their activity during a given reference week. Respondents participate four times: in 2 consecutive quarters, not in 2 quarters and then again in 2 quarters. This allows us to observe the labour market status of a particular respondent in a quarter, and one quarter and/or a year later: for example, is someone who is unemployed also unemployed in the following quarter and/or year? Thus, if one speaks of a certain status in a given quarter, it is by definition the status in the reference week. If one declares to work in the reference week of quarter T and in the reference week of quarter T+ 1, then one is counted twice as working. There are, of course, a number of cases that in the meantime were unemployed, but this is outside the scope of our data. The quarterly transitions are the sums of weighted observations of respondents participating in successive quarters (e.g. 2019T4-2020T1, 2020T1-2020T2). The quarter-specific annual transitions are the sums of weighted observations of respondents participating in the same quarter of two consecutive years (e.g. 2019T1-2020T1). The annual transitions are the averages of four quarter-specific annual transitions for two consecutive years (e.g. 2019-2020). Respondents who did not participate in either wave (= surveys) cannot be used in this analysis. Respondents in the longitudinal sample are at least 15 and 74 years old in both quarters. The longitudinal sample shall be calibrated according to the estimated distributions of IAB labour market status by age, gender, region, educational level and nationality in the initial and final quarters. The published figures are based on the Labour Force Survey. These are not exact figures but approaches based on the extrapolation of a random sample from the Belgian population. This should be taken into account when interpreting the figures. Where the unweighted number of persons is less than 30, the data should be interpreted with caution.