Quarterly Labour Force Survey 2023
Quarter 1

South Africa, 2023

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Reference ID

ZAF_2023_QLFS-Q1_v01_M

Producer(s)

Statistics South Africa

Collection(s)

DataFirst , University of Cape Town, South Africa

Metadata

Documentation in PDF DDI/XML JSON

Study website

Created on

Jul 26, 2023

Last modified

Jul 26, 2023

Page views

8823

Downloads

348

Identification

Survey ID number

ZAF_2023_QLFS-Q1_v01_M

Title

Quarterly Labour Force Survey 2023

Subtitle

Quarter 1

Country/Economy

Name	Country code
South Africa	ZAF

Study type

Labour Force Survey [hh/lfs]

Abstract

The Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) is a household-based sample survey conducted by Statistics South Africa (Stats SA). It collects data on the labour market activities of individuals aged 15 years or older who live in South Africa.

Kind of Data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Unit of Analysis

Individuals

Version

Version Description

Version 1: Edited, anonymised dataset for public distribution.

Version Date

2023

Version Notes

This version was retrieved by DataFirst on 27 June 2023.

Scope

Notes

INDIVIDUALS: labour market activity, labour preferences, labour market history, demographic characteristics, marital status, employment status, education, grants, tax.

From 2010 the income data collected by South Africa's Quarterly Labour Force Survey is no longer provided in the QLFS dataset (except for a brief return in QLFS 2010 Q3 which may be an error). Possibly because the data is unreliable at the level of the quarter, Statistics South Africa now provides the income data from the QLFS in an annualised dataset called Labour Market Dynamics in South Africa (LMDSA). The datasets for LMDSA are available from DataFirst's website.

Coverage

Geographic Coverage

National coverage

Geographic Unit

Provincial and metropolitan level, as well as by geographic type.

Universe

The QLFS sample covers the non-institutional population of South Africa with one exception. The only institutional subpopulation included in the QLFS sample are individuals in worker's hostels. Persons living in private dwelling units within institutions are also enumerated. For example, within a school compound, one would enumerate the schoolmaster's house and teachers' accommodation because these are private dwellings. Students living in a dormitory on the school compound would, however, be excluded.

Producers and sponsors

Primary investigators

Name	Affiliation
Statistics South Africa	Government of South Africa

Sampling

Sampling Procedure

The QLFS uses a master sampling frame that is used by several household surveys conducted by Statistics South Africa. This wave of the QLFS is based on the 2013 master frame, which was created based on the 2011 census. There are 3324 PSUs in the master frame and roughly 33 000 dwelling units.

The sample for the QLFS is based on a stratified two-stage design with probability proportional to size (PPS) sampling of PSUs in the first stage, and sampling of dwelling units (DUs) with systematic sampling in the second stage.

For each quarter of the QLFS, a quarter of the sampled dwellings are rotated out of the sample. These dwellings are replaced by new dwellings from the same PSU or the next PSU on the list. For more information see the statistical release.

Weighting

The sample weights were constructed in order to account for the following: the original selection probabilities (design weights); adjustments for PSUs that were sub-sampled or segmented; excluded population from the sampling frame (EAs with insufficient DUs); non-response; weight trimming; benchmarking to known population estimates from the Demographic Analysis Chief Directorate within Stats SA; and raking to bias-adjusted control estimates from a bias-adjustment procedure to compensate for the non-coverage bias in the sample due to only observing those households that can be contacted by telephone.

Survey instrument

Questionnaires

The survey questionnaire consists of the following sections:

Biographical information (marital status, education, etc.)
Economic activities for persons aged 15 years and older

Data collection

Dates of Data Collection

Start	End	Cycle
2023-01	2023-03	N/A

Mode of data collection

Face-to-Face and Computer Assisted Personal and Telephone Interview

Data Collection Notes

COVID 19 affected data collection for QLFS for Q2: 2020 to Q4: 2021 where data was collected using Computer-assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI). Since 2022, StatsSA took a decision to revert to face-to-face data collection using Computer-assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI). In that regard, data collections were mainly conducted using face-to-face interviewing with CAPI.

Data Access

Access authority

Name	Affiliation	URL	Email
DataFirst	University of Cape Town	support.data1st.org	support@data1st.org

Access conditions

Public access data for use under a Creative Commons CC-BY (Attribution-only) License

Citation requirements

Statistics South Africa. Quarterly Labour Force Survey 2023: Q1 [dataset]. Version 1. Pretoria: Statistics South Africa [producer], 2023. Cape Town: DataFirst [distributor], 2023. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25828/afb2-pn20

Metadata production

DDI Document ID

DDI_ZAF_2023_QLFS-Q1_v01_M

Producers

Name	Affiliation	Role
DataFirst	University of Cape Town	Metadata producer
Development Data Group	World Bank	Metadata adapted for Microdata Library

Date of Metadata Production

2023-07-25

Metadata version

DDI Document version

Version 01 (July 2023): This metadata was downloaded from the DataFirst website (https://www.datafirst.uct.ac.za/dataportal/index.php/catalog/central) and it is identical to DataFirst DDI version (zaf-statssa-qlfs-2023-q1-v1). The following two metadata fields were edited - Document ID and Survey ID.

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Quarterly Labour Force Survey 2023 Quarter 1