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The purpose of the Employment Status Survey is to obtain basic data for several kinds of administrative measures by clarifying people's usual economic activity. For this purpose, it surveys the detail of the employment structure, change of usual economic activity, desire for work, etc.
The survey has been conducted almost every three years since 1956, but every five years after 1982. The 1997 survey was the 13th.
This survey is a designated statistics survey (No.87) under the Statistics Law (Law No. 18, 1947) and is carried out in accordance with the Ordinance for the Employment Status Survey (Ordinace No.25 of the Prime Minister's Office, 1982).
The survey was conducted as of 0:00 am of October 1, 1997.
About 430 thousand households in the enumeration districts were selected and about 1.1 million members of the households aged 15 and over were surveyed.
However, the following persons were excluded from the enumeration:
The following topics are contained in the questionnaire of the 1997 survey.
A. All household members
Name and sex,
Relationship to household head,
Month and year of birth,
Marital status,
Place of residence a year ago,
Education,
Usual economic activity
B. For working persons
a) On main job
Status in employment,
Form of employment,
Type of leagal organization, name and industry of establishment,
Occupation,
Employment size of enterprise,
Annual working days,
Regularity of work,
Weekly working hours,
Annual income,
Desire for work,
Desire for working hours,
Reason for wishing to change the job,
Kind of job desired,
Whether seeking a job,
Change of usual economic activity over the year,
Duration engaged in present job,
Usual economic activity a year ago,
Reason for taking up a job newly,
Whether had a job perviously
b) On secondary job
Whether having secondary job,
Status in employment,
Industry of establishment
c) On previous job
The time of leaving the previous job,
Reason for leaving the previous job,
Status in employment,
Industry of establishment,
Occupation,
Employment size of enterprise,
Duration engaged in the previous job
C. For not working persons
a) On desire for work, etc.
Whether wishing to work,
Reason for wishing to work,
Whether wishing to work mainly or partly,
Kind of job desired,
Whether seeking a job,
Reason for not seeking a job,
Method used to seek a job,
Duration of job seeking,
Intention to take up job,
Usual economic activity a year ago,
Whether had a job previously
b) On previous job
The time of leaving previous job,
Reason for leaving the previous job,
Status in employment,
Industry of establishment,
Occupation,
Employment size of enterprise,
Duration engaged in present job
Number and age of household members under 15,
Number of household members aged 15 and over,
Sources of household income,
Annual income of the household
The survey was conducted through the following channel:
Director-General of The Management and Coordination Agency
(Director-General of Statistics Bureau) -->
Prefectural Governors -->
Heads of Municipalities (Shi, Ku, Machi, and Mura) -->
Supervisors -->
Enumerators -->
Households
The survey was conducted according to the following procedures:
The survey results were estimated with the benchmark population as of October 1, 1997.
The results of this survey were tabulated from the collected questionnaires at the Statistics Center and were released by the Statistics Bureau, the Management and Coordination Agency.
The reports of the results are published as the following:
(1) Preliminary results for prefectures, June 1998
(2) Results for regions, July 1998
(3) Results for Japan, October 1998
