Abstract
This article describes the compilation procedure for statistics on the labour market position of persons receiving national assistance. In the past such information could not be compiled adequately because the number of persons receiving social security benefits is severely underestimated in the Labour Force Survey (LFS). The reasons for this underestimation have become clear by micro matching the LFS with the data files of the social security administrations concerning persons receiving national assistance. The main reason is that respondents do not always report correctly in the LFS that they receive assistance. A quarter of the underestimation is caused by selective non-response in the LFS of persons receiving assistance. The micro match also enables us to provide complete information on the labour market position of persons receiving national assistance. This is done in two ways. Firstly, the LFS data are supplemented with data on persons who do not report their receiving of national assistance correctly in the LFS. Secondly, weighting to the administrative totals corrects for the effect of selective non-response in the LFS. About one out of ten people receiving national assistance is working twelve hours or more per week; five out of ten are immediately available for the labour market and three out of ten do not want a job for twelve hours or more a week. Comparison at the micro level of the data files of the employment offices showed that 85 percent of the people who had to be registered at an employment office were actually registered.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.