Turning labour market information into labour

market intelligencePaul Bivand

Inclusion

Developments

SourcesMethodsVisualisationBeing up to the minute

Sources: the Office for National Statistics

The ONS produce most ‘national’ and ‘official’ statistics on the labour market

They try very hard to – Get the figures right, beyond challenge– Explain and visualise the figures– New economic statistics page: http://

www.ons.gov.uk/ons/site-information/using-the-website/time-series/index.html

– Youtube https://www.youtube.com/user/onsstats

ONS Labour Market Framework

People Families/hhlds

Labour supplyLabour demand

Employed Unemployed Inactive

Self-employed

Employees

Gvt schemes

Employers

Vacancies Jobs

The ONS operates by ‘themes’The Labour Market is one: http://

www.ons.gov.uk/ons/taxonomy/index.html?nscl=Labour+Market

More detailed local area data is available from NOMIS www.nomisweb.co.uk but– Much of the information that is most

compatible with ONS preferred measures is delayed compared to current ONS data – e.g. Annual Population Survey

– And not seasonally adjusted, which can confuse

Visualising expressed demand for skills and

occupationsUsing earnings surveys – the Annual

Survey of Hours and EarningsAnd the Labour Force Survey –

looking at people who have started jobs in the previous three months– Can include people moving jobs

What’s expressed demand?

Employers pay earnings packages they need to recruit, retain and motivate staff

Relative pay therefore encodes some features of expressed demand

So do changes in relative pay, and changes in numbers employed

Only two chartsMy

first chart shows ASHE annual earnings by occupation

Showing the earnings distribution by boxplots – so the hinges are quartiles and the whiskers are deciles

Ordered the occupations by median pay

I’ve then coloured the fill of each box to show the qualification level of recruits

Labour Force Survey analysisWe now have eight quarters of LFS

coded to SOC 20107.2 million (weighted) instances of

jobs starting in the previous 3 months – recruits

Have estimated the qualification level of recruits

Information for 353 out of 369 4-digit occupation groups

This tells usWhat is the pay range for each

occupation – what employers are paying

What qualifications are held by job starters

Could have coloured by:Numbers of job starters – giving a

different picture

This is just a static analysisASHE gives us the opportunity to

measure changeHowever, the change in Occupation

Classification means that any medium-term change can only be done up to 2011 or the 2011-12 change

Single year changes contain random effects (like when pay reviews happen early or late)

Relative rises and fallsWe have plotted the change in earnin

gs 2006-11 and in ASHE employee numbers 2006-11

We have coloured the occupations by the qualification level of new job entrants in 2009-10 – with red as high qualified this time

What does this show?Top right quadrant – jobs rising in pay

and in numbers – in demand (though some minimum wage jobs)

Bottom right quadrant – jobs rising in numbers but relatively dropping in pay – market is supplying enough new skills

Top left quadrant – dropping numbers but rising relative pay – employers making a market response to recruit when careers more risky

And what about the bottom left?

Falling relative pay and falling numbers

Skilled tradesProcess, plant workersSecretarialAnd some STEM occupations –

particularly techniciansRational to avoid these occupations

Visualisation: the next big thing

The ONS visualisations we saw earlier are useful,

because they enable users not only to interact,

but also to download copies in a range of formats

As well as the underlying data

More information will be circulated...

A couple of years ago I prepared a set of course notes on labour market information– How to use NOMIS (still good)– How to use Neighbourhood Statistics

(mostly still works)– Other Government departments – the

move to GOV.UK has changed most things