The main purpose of the Labour Force Survey (LFS) is to put focus on the population’s relation to the labour market for people aged 15-89 both in and outside the labour market. Everyone in the population falls into one of three categories: employed, unemployed or outside the labour force.

For example, the survey shows how many are employed, unemployed, in education or training, retired etc., as well as the population’s educational attainment and in which educational programmes and courses the population is currently enrolled. Furthermore, the Labour Force Survey shows the conditions on the labour market, including weekly hours of work, odd hours etc.

The survey is especially useful when you want to:

• Make international comparisons
• Know about unemployed persons who are not entitled to benefits
• Know about youth unemployment (15-24 years)
• Know about working time

The LFS is the Danish contribution to Eurostat’s Labour Force Survey and is thus applied internationally by the EU, OECD and ILO. Data is collected and compiled according to uniform principles in all EU countries, and in Denmark we have done this all year round since 1994.

On a national level, research scientists, politicians, ministries, professional and industrial bodies and other labour market stakeholders use the data.

You have been randomly selected, and you are among the 64,000 people in Denmark who will jointly represent the relationship of the whole population with the labour market. We have your name and address from the Civic Registration System (CPR).

You have been selected based on your age and former association with the labour market. We have this information from the employment and unemployment registers. In this way, you have been selected to represent a group similar to yourself, and to avoid bias in the results, we would greatly appreciate it if you choose to reply.

The survey is as a rotational panel survey with four panels. A panel survey means that a person participates several times in the survey. The four-panel design means that a quarter of the sample participants rotate every quarter.

If you are selected to participate in the survey, we will send you an invitation letter describing how you can answer the questionnaire.

If possible, we would like you to complete the questionnaire via the internet. You will find a direct link to your interview, your personal reference number and password in the letter we have sent you. It is also possible to answer the questionnaire via tablet or smartphone. The questionnaire is available for responses for four weeks.

Sometime after we have sent the letter to you, we will try to contact you by phone with respect to your participation in the survey. On weekdays, we make calls between 9:00 and 21:00, on Saturdays and public holidays, we make calls between 11:00 and 17:00, and on Sundays between 11:00 and 18:00.

It takes approximately 5-15 minutes to answer the questionnaire.

We would like to interview you four times altogether. We invite you to participate in the survey two quarters in a row. After a six-month break, we then interview you again in the following two quarters. We hope that you will participate all four times. Interviewing the same people several times gives us the best measurement of changes over time, for example making it visible that people are working more hours than they did the last time they were interviewed etc.

As a way to thank you for your time, we will draw lots between all responses for one grand prize of DKK 10,000 and ten prizes of DKK 1,000 - tax free. We will draw lots for the prizes 3-6 months after the interview has taken place. The winner will be notified directly via Digital Post, and the sum will be paid to his or her NemKonto (from the Danish National Account Register).

If you have a non-disclosure address in the Danish Civil Registration System (CPR), it does not mean that we cannot contact you. This is because public authorities are allowed to access and use the information.

We process your answers with strict confidentiality and under no circumstances, do we disclose information on you to any other authorities. When the survey has been completed, the results are published as statistics in which nobody will be able to recognise the individual participants in the survey.

We treat all information provided to us with confidentiality. In publications, individual persons cannot be identified. In our daily work, we aim to ensure anonymity in the best possible way. Moreover, our employees are under a duty of confidentiality. See further information under GDPR.

The main results from the Labour Force Survey are published each quarter and annually in Nyt Fra Danmarks Statistik (in Danish), and the results are also available in Statistikbanken.

A description of the Labour Force Survey is also available in the Statistikdokumentationen. Any other information, such as documentation and concepts, is available at www.dst.dk/aku.

In addition, quarterly figures are available in Øresundsdatabanken and via Eurostat, OECD and ILO. You or your answers will not appear anywhere that makes it possible to identify you.

If you want to know more about the survey, you are welcome to call us at +45 80 20 00 15 (weekdays: 9:00-20:00, Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays: 11:00-17:00) or write an email to: arbejdskraft@dst.dk

Always remember to state your reference number in connection with all requests. You can answer the questionnaire via the internet at www.survey.epinion.dk/AKU

Further information about participation in the Labour Force Survey is available at www.aku.epinion.dk

If you have questions about data protection, you are welcome to contact Statistics Denmark’s DPO at +45 39 17 39 95 or databeskyttelse@dst.dk