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The 2007 Employment Status Survey Outline of the Survey

1. Purpose of the Survey

The Employment Status Survey aims to obtain basic data on the actual conditions of the employment structure at both national and regional levels by surveying usual labour force status in Japan.

2. History of the Survey

The Employment Status Survey has been conducted every three years since 1956 until 1982 and every five years since 1982, the 2007 Employment Status Survey being the fifteenth one.

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 (Ordinance No.25 of the Prime Minister's Office, 1982).

4. Coverage of the Survey

In the designated enumeration districts, this survey was conducted on household members 15 years old or more in approximately 450,000 households dwelling in sampled units (a building or part of building capable of housing one household) selected by the mayors of cities, the mayors of towns and village heads in the manner prescribed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.
The following persons however were excluded from the enumeration.

A. Foreign diplomatic corps or consular staff (including their suite and their family members)
B. Foreign military personnel or civilians (including their family members)
C. Persons dwelling in camps or ships of the Self-Defense Forces
D. Persons serving sentences in prisons or detention houses
E. Inmates of reformatory institutions or women's guidance homes

5. Sampling Method

In this survey, a stratified two-stage sampling method was adopted with the Enumeration Districts of the 2005 Population Census (abbreviated as ED hereafter) as the first-stage sampling units, and dwellings as the second-stage sampling units.
At the first-stage, this EDs are selected from all over the country in random sampling.
At the second-stage, a specific number of dwellings are selected from among households living in the sample districts by a random sampling.
All the members aged fifteen or older living in the selected dwellings in sample EDs are enumerated.

(1)Sampling of EDs(first-stage sampling)

A. Sample EDs for this survey were selected from among all EDs except for
a. districts with forest or field etc;
b. districts with prisons or detention houses etc;
c. districts of the Self-Defense Forces;
d. districts of foreign military forces;
e. water districts;

B. In each city, ward, town or village, all EDs were stratified according to population by industry etc.
In each stratum of each city, ward, town or village, a sample of EDs was selected by the systematic sampling with unequal probabilities.

(2)Sampling of dwellings (second-stage sampling)

Sample dwellings were systematically selected by using a random starting number and a sampling interval based on the "list of all dwellings", in the sample ED, which has approximately 50 households on average.

6. Items surveyed

Items surveyed included the following.

(1)Items related to household members 15 years old or more

A. All household members
Name, sex, marital status, relationship to the head of your household, Month and year of birth,educational status e.g. attending or graduated from an educational institution, address of a year ago,usual labour force status, whether doing any training or self-development, type of training or self-development and labour force status of the last week of September.

B. Persons engaged in work
a) Main job
Employment status, type of employment at place of work, type of legal organization at place of work, name of place of work, whether start a business of your own or not, contents of business at place of work, contents of work, number of persons engaged in enterprise, days worked per year, regularity of work, working hours per week, income, whether wishing to change the present job etc.; or to have an additional job, whether wishing to extend working hours, etc.; reason for wishing to change the present job, status of job wished to take, whether seeking a job, when took up the job, reason for starting a job, labour force status a year ago, and whether had a job.

b) Second job
Employment status and contents of business at place of work.

c) Previous job
When left the previous job, reason for leaving the previous job, employment status, type of employment at place of work, contents of business at place of work, contents of work, number of persons engaged in enterprise, and duration engaged in work (years and months), relationship between present job or previous job and "first job", timing of the opening for "first job", and employment status and type of employment for "first job".

C. Persons not engaged in work

a) Wish for work, etc.
Whether wishing to work, reason for wishing to work, kind of job wished to take, status of job wished to take, whether seeking a job, reason for not seeking a job, duration of seeking a job, intention to take up a job, reason for not wishing to work, labour force status a year ago, and whether had working experience.

b) Previous job
When left the previous job, reason for leaving the previous job, employment status, type of employment at place of work, contents of business at place of work, contents of the work, number of persons engaged in enterprise, and duration engaged in work (years and months), relationship between present / previous job and "first job", timing of getting "first job", and employment status and type of employment for "first job".

(2)Items related to households

Household members less than 15 years old, household members 15 years old or more, type of household income sources and annual income of household as a whole.

7. Date of the Survey

The survey was taken as of 0:00 a.m. on October 1, 2007.

8. Method of the Survey

(1)Survey channel

The survey was conducted through the following channel;
Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) - prefectures - cities, towns and villages - statistical surveyors( or private research companies).

(2)Statistical surveyors

A. Following instructions on implementation of the survey issued by the mayors of cities, the mayors of towns and village heads, the statistical surveyors distributed and collected uestionnaires pertaining to households within their assigned EDs, prepared relevant documents and performed other associated work.

B. Irrespective of the procedures described in A, statistical surveyors designated by prefectural governors (hereafter referred to as "Supervisors"), extended guidance to statistical surveyors (excluding the Supervisors, and hereafter referred to "Enumerators"), examined questionnaires and other relevant documents, and performed other associated work(hereafter referred to "Enumerator's work"), following instructions on implementation of the survey issued by the mayors of cities, the mayors of towns and village heads.

C. Irrespective of the procedures described in A and B, if for a particular reason the Enumerator(s) could not perform part of the work described in A, the Supervisor(s) performed this work in the manner prescribe by mayors of cities and towns and village heads.

(3)Private research companies

A. When the mayors of cities, the mayors of towns and village heads entrust fieldwork to the private research companies, the companies do fieldwork within their assigned EDs instead of cities, towns and villages.

B. Instead of statistical surveyors, the private research companies and the employee do Enumerator's work based on the restrictive specific.

(4)Method of the survey

For the survey, Enumerators (including Supervisors performing part of the work of the Enumerators as described in (2)-C, hereafter referred to as "Enumerators, etc.") distributed questionnaires to each household to be surveyed and collected the completed questionnaires, and conducted Q&A sessions with the households. When Enumerator's work are entrusted to the private research companies, the companies and the employee do Enumerator's work by the same method above.

(5)Method of response

Response to the questionnaires was through completion of questionnaires by household members 15 years old or more, or by the head of the household surveyed, as well as by answering questions from the Enumerators or Private research companies, etc.
In addition, in the EDs designated by the Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications, households can fill in the questionnaires with the use of electric information processing system connected the computer of MIC and their computers with telecommunication line.

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