Starting from 2021, the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia will switch to a new, redesigned methodology of the Labour Force Survey (LFS).
The Survey will be redesigned on the basis and according to the new regulation of the European Parliament and Council, which entered into force on January 1st, 2021. The new European regulation requires of the EU countries to implement the new redesigned concepts and methods in the Labour Force Survey, starting from 2021. The Republic of Serbia, i.e. Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia, as member of the European Statistical System, parallelly with other European countries, adapts to the changes in the European legislation.
The methodology is revised in order to improve the content of the Survey and enable more precise monitoring of labour market trends, as the latter has been experiencing constant changes in its dynamics and structure. The new standardized questionnaire will contribute to better quality and international comparability.
Some of the most important methodological changes are the exclusion of persons producing goods and services mainly intended for own consumption, and to a smaller extent for market exchange from the contingent of employees. New questions will be introduced and some existing ones will be rephrased so to have labour market trends more adequately measured, such as the growing employment flexibility; in order to detect more precisely the obstacles for participating on the labour market; to define more efficient methods of job seeking; to ensure more precise measurement of absenteeism and reasons thereof, hence of hours worked and not worked; to allow a more detailed analysis of the business structure of the self-employed, etc.
