Policy Brief: Non-Response Rates in the Quarterly Labour Force Survey during COVID-19: A Brief Commentary

DPRU Policy Brief 2022/56 has just been published. Originally prepared for the Presidency, this brief considers the data quality of the QLFS - SA’s official source of labour market statistics - during the pandemic, focusing on non-response. The note was authored by Prof. Haroon Bhorat (DPRU Director), Tim Köhler (DPRU Junior Research Fellow & UCT PhD Candidate) and Ben Stanwix (DPRU Senior Research Officer).

The Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) is a cross-sectional, nationally-representative, sample-based household survey, that has been conducted by Statistics South Africa (StatsSA) every quarter since 2008. It is the primary source of detailed, reliable information on the state of the country’s labour market.

In late March 2020, COVID-19 lockdown restrictions forced StatsSA to suspend all face-to-face work. Data collection procedures thus changed from relying on in-person interviews to using ‘Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviewing’ (CATI), where respondents answered survey questions over the phone.

At the same time, labour market dynamics altered dramatically amidst the pandemic, as just over 2 million people lost their jobs. 

In addition, the announcement of the first national lockdown in South Africa prompted substantial internal migration in the days before it came into force, significantly changing household composition.

Read the brief in full here.