The head of Britain’s statistical office said on Tuesday he was “super-hopeful” that the shift to a new, improved labour market survey could take place next year and not in 2027 which has previously been mentioned as a possible roll-out date.
“I would very much like the number to end with a six,” Ian Diamond, National Statistician at the Office for National Statistics, told lawmakers when asked when the Transformed Labour Force Survey might be introduced.
“My professional view is that I am super-hopeful,” Diamond told parliament’s Treasury Committee, adding he was encouraged by the results of the new approach to surveying which includes a shorter questionnaire.
The ONS said in December that the shift to its improved labour market survey might be pushed back to as late as 2027, a setback for the Bank of England which is trying to assess inflationary pressures in the economy.
The ONS has struggled to reach respondents for its surveys since the Covid-19 pandemic and is overhauling the way it measures the labour market with a focus on introducing the TLFS as a way to reach more people.
The Resolution Foundation, a think tank, has said the official labour market data may be failing to count almost 1 million people who are in work and overstating the number of people dropping out of the labour market altogether.
(Writing by William Schomberg）
