A labour accounting system – reflections on main concepts and principles

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Hoffmann, Eivind

Affiliations: Bureau of Statistics, International Labour Office, CH-1211 Geneva 22, Switzerland

Abstract: Labour Accounting System (LAS) gives the conceptual and structural basis for a complete and detailed statistical picture of the structure and dynamics of labour markets (labour resources), wages and income from work within a nation. To devise of “labour accounts” most countries find that they need to combine statistics from many different sources (population censuses, household surveys, establishment surveys and administrative records), which often tell contradictory stories and have pieces missing. It is also necessary to identify the conceptual basis for links with the wider set of social and demographic statistics on the one side and with general economic statistics on the other. Creating an LAS involves identifying basic structural elements and units of observation, reference periods and periodicity, measurement units, and identification of major distributive variables and their value sets.

DOI: 10.3233/SJU-1990-7404

Journal: Statistical Journal of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, vol. 7, no. 4, pp. 253-263, 1990