Reference metadata describe statistical concepts and methodologies used for the collection and generation of data. They provide information on data quality and, since they are strongly content-oriented, assist users in interpreting the data. Reference metadata, unlike structural metadata, can be decoupled from the data.
Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union
1.2. Contact organisation unit
[4D1_F3] Eurostat - Labour market and skills
1.3. Contact name
Confidential because of GDPR
1.4. Contact person function
Confidential because of GDPR
1.5. Contact mail address
2920 Luxembourg LUXEMBOURG
1.6. Contact email address
Confidential because of GDPR
1.7. Contact phone number
Confidential because of GDPR
1.8. Contact fax number
2.1. Metadata last certified
28 May 2018
2.2. Metadata last posted
28 May 2018
2.3. Metadata last update
27 January 2020
3.1. Data description
The section 'Labour mobility' provides demographical and labour statistics on people either born in European Union (EU) and European Free Trade Association (EFTA) area or having the citizenship of an EU/EFTA country and residing elsewhere on the EU and EFTA territories except their country of birth/citizenship. This implies aggregating the estimates coming from Labour Force Survey samples (EU-LFS) of all EU/EFTA countries except that of origin or nationality to find all the persons of a certain nationality or country of origin that reside elsewhere where the EU rules regarding the free movement of people apply. More specifically, they can be identified only if effectively a changed of residence implying crossing a border has taken place, meaning they reside (or intend to do so) in another country for at least 12 months. Short term movements are therefore not taken into account.
3.2. Classification system
The EU-LFS results are produced in accordance with the relevant international classification systems. For this specific section, the following classifications are used: ISO 3166 for country codes, ISCED 2011 for the level of education, ILO guidelines supplemented by Regulation 1897/2000 provisions for status on the labour market.
3.3. Coverage - sector
As a general rule the EU-LFS covers all economic sectors.
3.4. Statistical concepts and definitions
Immigrants are persons who established their usual residence in another country than they were born, for a period that is – or is expected to be – at least 12 months. The usual residence means the place at which a person normally spend the daily period of rest, regardless of temporary absence for purposes of recreation, holidays, visits to friend and relatives, business, medical treatment or religious pilgrimage or, by default, the place of legal or registered residence.
The tables under this section group together the immigrants with common origins or nationality, residing on EU and EFTA territories. Therefore, a first set of tables groups the immigrants residing in the EU and EFTA territories by their country of birth and looks at their number and employment rates by age group, sex or education attainment level. For instance, the estimates on immigrants born in a specific EU/EFTA country from all reporting countries are grouped together and give the corresponding statistics for that country of birth.
A second mirror set of tables groups the immigrants residing in the EU and EFTA territories by their country of citizenship and looks at their number and employment rates by age group, sex or education attainment level.
This results in the following online tables:
Set 1 – by country of birth
EU/EFTA born population of working age who usually resides in another EU/EFTA country by country of birth and age
EU/EFTA born population of working age who usually resides in another EU/EFTA country by country of birth, age and sex
EU/EFTA born population of working age who usually resides in another EU/EFTA country by country of birth, age and educational attainment level
Employment rate of EU/EFTA born population who usually resides in another EU/EFTA country by country of birth and age
Employment rate of EU/EFTA born population who usually resides in another EU/EFTA country by country of birth, age and sex
Employment rate of EU/EFTA born population who usually resides in another EU/EFTA country by country of birth, age and educational attainment level
Methodological note: due to legal constraints, Germany does not transmit to Eurostat the 'ISO 3166 Country codes' for the variable 'country of birth'. The data for this variable are transmitted in an aggregated form that allows only distinguishing native-born from foreign-born people. Consequently, for persons residing in Germany but who were not born in Germany there is no detailed information on which country they were born in. In order not to calculate these statistics excluding the persons to be found on the German territory, the variable 'country of citizenship' is used as a proxy for 'country of birth'.
Set 2 – by country of citizenship
EU/EFTA citizens of working age who usually reside in another EU/EFTA country by citizenship and age
EU/EFTA citizens of working age who usually reside in another EU/EFTA country by citizenship, age and sex
EU/EFTA citizens of working age who usually reside in another EU/EFTA country by citizenship, age and educational attainment level
Employment rate of EU/EFTA citizens who usually reside in another EU/EFTA country by citizenship and age
Employment rate of EU/EFTA citizens who usually reside in another EU/EFTA country by citizenship, age and sex
Employment rate of EU/EFTA citizens who usually reside in another EU/EFTA country by citizenship, age and educational attainment level
Persons of working age (from 15 to 64) living in private households and residing in any of the European Union and EFTA countries except Lichtenstein for which EU-LFS does not collect data.
In order to eliminate the influence of young persons who are most likely still completing their studies – and thus being actually not active on the labour market – this section also provides separate statistics for 20-64 age subgroup.
A separate focus on European Union territory is also provided (e.g. persons of working age – either from 15 to 64 or from 20 to 64 – living in private households and residing in any of the EU Member State)
3.7. Reference area
European Union, the UK and three EFTA countries (except for Lichtenstein).
As the European Union changes its composition as a consequence of the withdrawal of the United Kingdom, during the transition period two EU aggregates are disseminated in parallel, respectively:
European Union - 28 countries (2013-2020)
European Union - 27 countries (from 2020)
To these a third and a forth aggregate including the three EFTA countries (except for Lichtenstein) are added in this dataset:
European Union - 28 countries (2013-2020) and European Free Trade Association (EFTA)
European Union - 27 countries (from 2020) and European Free Trade Association (EFTA)
Data for Cyprus refer only to the areas of Cyprus controlled by the Government of the Republic of Cyprus.
3.8. Coverage - Time
2007 onwards
3.9. Base period
Not applicable
The demographical tables are expressed in thousands of persons while those on employment rate are expressed in percent.
Calendar year
6.1. Institutional Mandate - legal acts and other agreements
The EU-LFS is based on European legislation since 1973. Its implementation is governed by legislative acts of the Council and Parliament, as well as of the Commission. The principal legal act is the Council Regulation (EC) No. 577/98. The implementation rules are specified in the successive Commission regulations. This is the main regulation with provisions on design, survey characteristics and decision making processes. For more details on the regulations, please consult EU-LFS (Statistics Explained) - Main features and legal basis.
6.2. Institutional Mandate - data sharing
Not applicable
7.1. Confidentiality - policy
Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics (recital 24 and Article 20(4)) of 11 March 2009 (OJ L 87, p. 164), stipulates the need to establish common principles and guidelines ensuring the confidentiality of data used for the production of European statistics and the access to those confidential data with due account for technical developments and the requirements of users in a democratic society.
7.2. Confidentiality - data treatment
EU-LFS microdata, as received by Eurostat from the national statistical institutes, does not contain any administrative information such as names or addresses that would allow direct identification. Access to this microdata is nevertheless strictly controlled and limited to specified Eurostat staff. After data treatment, records are aggregated for all further use.
The concern for the quality of labour statistics in general and of the EU-LFS in particular has been expressed in Regulations, reflected in harmonised definitions and discussed in Working groups (such as the Labour Markey Statistics Working Group and its predecessor the Employment Statistics Working Group), workshops and seminars within the European Statistical System (ESS).
Concerning the EU-LFS, major milestones in the improvement of its quality have been the adoption of Council Regulation (EC) No 577/98 on the organisation of a continuous, quarterly sample survey in the Community; the adoption of Commission Regulation (EC) No 1897/2000 concerning the operational definition of unemployment and the 12 principles for formulating questions on labour status; the adoption of Regulation (EC) No 1991/2002 of the European Parliament and of the Council making the continuous survey mandatory from 2003 onwards (except Italy from 2004 and Germany from 2005) and the adoption of Regulation (EC) No 2257/2003 of the European Parliament and of the Council extending the survey characteristics and introducing the distinction between structural and quarterly variables.
Eurostat and the Member States have continuously worked also on a voluntary basis to improve the quality of the survey. Annual quality reports were introduced in 2002 and quarterly accuracy reports were introduced in 2004. Standards and rules for preparing ad hoc modules were adopted in 2004. At the initiative of Member States, a programme of annual EU-LFS workshops was started in 2005.
11.2. Quality management - assessment
The overall quality of EU-LFS statistics is considered as high. National LFSs are considered as reliable sources applying high standards with regard to the methodology. However, the EU-LFS, like all surveys, is based upon a sample of the population. The results are therefore subject to the usual types of errors associated with random sampling. Based on the sample size and design in the various Member States, Eurostat implements basic guidelines intended to avoid publication of figures that are unreliable or to give warning of the unreliability of the figures.
12.1. Relevance - User Needs
Migration statistics and demographic statistics in general are widely used to plan actions, evaluate programmes and monitor trends in a number of social and economic policy fields.
In particular, the active participation of immigrants in the EU labour market is very important for social cohesion and having productive and effective societies. The labour mobility is of particular interest to policymakers who are working to build and develop the premises for a win-win experience for all parties involved.
EU-LFS results are used mainly by the DG Employment and a number of other Directorates of the Commission for measurement and monitoring of policy agendas purposes. Key users include National Statistics Institutes (NSIs), international organisations, news agencies and researchers, which use of various aspects of EU-LFS data for international or intra EU comparisons.
12.2. Relevance - User Satisfaction
No user satisfaction surveys are carried out.
12.3. Completeness
Even if otherwise adhering to the EU regulations on the EU-LFS, countries do not always provide data for all the variables. This can be for various reasons, such as assessment that the variable in question is irrelevant to the labour market situation in the country or (temporary) inability to implement the variable in the national questionnaire. Also, data availability depends on fulfilling confidentiality and accuracy requirements. Thus, some indicators may be partially incomplete for some breakdowns.
13.1. Accuracy - overall
The overall accuracy is considered as high but she sample is not specifically designed to follow immigrants. Thus, many breakdowns available for native-born population may be unavailable for the foreign-born population, the corresponding data being confidential or not enough accurate.
Published estimates stemming from the EU-LFS are considered fully internally coherent, since arithmetic and accounting identities in the production of EU-LFS datasets are observed. Very slight differences can be observed solely when comparing EU aggregates by country of birth with tables 'Population – LFS series' (lfsa_pop) and 'Employment rates – LFS series' (lfsa_empr). They are explained by using proxy variable for 'country of birth' (for more details see section 3.4 – Methodological note).
All reported errors (once validated) result in corrections of the disseminated data. Reported errors that are deemed to be significant are corrected in the disseminated data as soon as the correct data have been validated. Corrections for other errors are carried out in connection with the regular scheduled data dissemination.
Data are only published once they are deemed to be sufficiently complete for all data providers contributing to the aggregate.
Whenever new data are provided and validated, the already disseminated data are updated with next regular production cycle. New data are only used to update disseminated data in the case of reported errors, or in exceptional situations, such as after new population estimates have been defined based on a population census.
Annual data are updated with the same periodicity as quarterly data.
Survey includes both quarterly variables and annual variables (i.e. collected only once a year).
18.3. Data collection
The data is acquired by interviewing the sampled individuals directly. For more information please consult the EU-LFS (Statistics Explained) webpage.
18.4. Data validation
Prior to the dissemination of national data, EU-LFS results are validated by the Member States and checked for plausibility by Eurostat.
18.5. Data compilation
The data at country level - either by country of birth or citizenship - are EU aggregates by adding up national data series (see details at section 3.1. Data description).
Rates/Ratios are subsequently calculated from the data expressed in absolute values (i.e. number of persons).
18.6. Adjustment
No adjustments.
No notes.
The section 'Labour mobility' provides demographical and labour statistics on people either born in European Union (EU) and European Free Trade Association (EFTA) area or having the citizenship of an EU/EFTA country and residing elsewhere on the EU and EFTA territories except their country of birth/citizenship. This implies aggregating the estimates coming from Labour Force Survey samples (EU-LFS) of all EU/EFTA countries except that of origin or nationality to find all the persons of a certain nationality or country of origin that reside elsewhere where the EU rules regarding the free movement of people apply. More specifically, they can be identified only if effectively a changed of residence implying crossing a border has taken place, meaning they reside (or intend to do so) in another country for at least 12 months. Short term movements are therefore not taken into account.
27 January 2020
Immigrants are persons who established their usual residence in another country than they were born, for a period that is – or is expected to be – at least 12 months. The usual residence means the place at which a person normally spend the daily period of rest, regardless of temporary absence for purposes of recreation, holidays, visits to friend and relatives, business, medical treatment or religious pilgrimage or, by default, the place of legal or registered residence.
The tables under this section group together the immigrants with common origins or nationality, residing on EU and EFTA territories. Therefore, a first set of tables groups the immigrants residing in the EU and EFTA territories by their country of birth and looks at their number and employment rates by age group, sex or education attainment level. For instance, the estimates on immigrants born in a specific EU/EFTA country from all reporting countries are grouped together and give the corresponding statistics for that country of birth.
A second mirror set of tables groups the immigrants residing in the EU and EFTA territories by their country of citizenship and looks at their number and employment rates by age group, sex or education attainment level.
This results in the following online tables:
Set 1 – by country of birth
EU/EFTA born population of working age who usually resides in another EU/EFTA country by country of birth and age
EU/EFTA born population of working age who usually resides in another EU/EFTA country by country of birth, age and sex
EU/EFTA born population of working age who usually resides in another EU/EFTA country by country of birth, age and educational attainment level
Employment rate of EU/EFTA born population who usually resides in another EU/EFTA country by country of birth and age
Employment rate of EU/EFTA born population who usually resides in another EU/EFTA country by country of birth, age and sex
Employment rate of EU/EFTA born population who usually resides in another EU/EFTA country by country of birth, age and educational attainment level
Methodological note: due to legal constraints, Germany does not transmit to Eurostat the 'ISO 3166 Country codes' for the variable 'country of birth'. The data for this variable are transmitted in an aggregated form that allows only distinguishing native-born from foreign-born people. Consequently, for persons residing in Germany but who were not born in Germany there is no detailed information on which country they were born in. In order not to calculate these statistics excluding the persons to be found on the German territory, the variable 'country of citizenship' is used as a proxy for 'country of birth'.
Set 2 – by country of citizenship
EU/EFTA citizens of working age who usually reside in another EU/EFTA country by citizenship and age
EU/EFTA citizens of working age who usually reside in another EU/EFTA country by citizenship, age and sex
EU/EFTA citizens of working age who usually reside in another EU/EFTA country by citizenship, age and educational attainment level
Employment rate of EU/EFTA citizens who usually reside in another EU/EFTA country by citizenship and age
Employment rate of EU/EFTA citizens who usually reside in another EU/EFTA country by citizenship, age and sex
Employment rate of EU/EFTA citizens who usually reside in another EU/EFTA country by citizenship, age and educational attainment level
Persons of working age (from 15 to 64) living in private households and residing in any of the European Union and EFTA countries except Lichtenstein for which EU-LFS does not collect data.
In order to eliminate the influence of young persons who are most likely still completing their studies – and thus being actually not active on the labour market – this section also provides separate statistics for 20-64 age subgroup.
A separate focus on European Union territory is also provided (e.g. persons of working age – either from 15 to 64 or from 20 to 64 – living in private households and residing in any of the EU Member State)
European Union, the UK and three EFTA countries (except for Lichtenstein).
As the European Union changes its composition as a consequence of the withdrawal of the United Kingdom, during the transition period two EU aggregates are disseminated in parallel, respectively:
European Union - 28 countries (2013-2020)
European Union - 27 countries (from 2020)
To these a third and a forth aggregate including the three EFTA countries (except for Lichtenstein) are added in this dataset:
European Union - 28 countries (2013-2020) and European Free Trade Association (EFTA)
European Union - 27 countries (from 2020) and European Free Trade Association (EFTA)
Data for Cyprus refer only to the areas of Cyprus controlled by the Government of the Republic of Cyprus.
Calendar year
The overall accuracy is considered as high but she sample is not specifically designed to follow immigrants. Thus, many breakdowns available for native-born population may be unavailable for the foreign-born population, the corresponding data being confidential or not enough accurate.
The demographical tables are expressed in thousands of persons while those on employment rate are expressed in percent.
The data at country level - either by country of birth or citizenship - are EU aggregates by adding up national data series (see details at section 3.1. Data description).
Rates/Ratios are subsequently calculated from the data expressed in absolute values (i.e. number of persons).
