temp
Notes from the GHS
Question
I am currently working with both the General Household
Survey and Labour Force Survey datasets and wondered if you could help me
with the following query? For both the GHS and LFS, when individuals are classified
to the industry they work in (e.g. variable 'indm92m' in LFS), how are those
individuals who are temporary or agency workers classified? Are agency/temporary
workers allocated to the actual industry where they work or to business services
- e.g. would an agency nurse be allocated to the health sector or to business
services?
Answer
I think that the answer to your
question lies in the questions asked. Looking at the questionnaires and the
classifications (available from the ESDS web site) it seems that in both the
LFS and the GHS respondents are asked about the industry of the firm at their
workplace (not necessarily that of their employer). As agency workers will
be working in a firm appropriate their own industrial sector (e.g. health
in the example of agency nurses) that should be the correct answer rather
than that of the agency. I had a look at the most recent LFS in Nesstar (which
asks questions about agency working) to check this out. It seems that 100%
of physiotherapists and radiographers who are agency temps have health as
their industry. Nurses are wee bit more mixed, but 83% of them are in health
(I guess it is more common for industry to have nurses!). So this confirms
what is implied in the question. Your agency nurses (or other agency workers)
should be in the industry of their workplace, rather than the industry of
the agency. I've looked at recent GHS/LFS to answer this, if you're using
old data, things might not be so clear cut.
