1. LAMAS Working Group 7-8 December 2016
Agenda Item 3.4 Working time
Eurostat

2. Background June 2016 LAMAS:
Large majority in favour of keeping EXIST2J, STAPRO2J, NACE2J2D, HWACTUA2 and adding HWUSUA2 => This decision stands; the debate won't be reopened
Issue of collecting information on the working time also for the other jobs (third job, etc.) => TF2 discussed this in September 2016
Eurostat's unit for National Accounts does not require information on total working hours
TF2 conclusion = important to know the extent of people with other jobs (third job, etc.)
Dear colleagues,
As you will remember, in the last LAMAS we discussed measurement of working time in the second job, and decided on having variables both on actual and on usual hours in the second job.
Additionally, the debate also opened the issue of measuring total working hours in all jobs.
We checked with National Accounts if they found this interesting, and they said no.
As the initiative for improved measurement of working time came from the LAMAS, task force 2 did not want to completely drop the issue.
Therefore, as a middle position, task force 2 proposes to revise EXIST2J, from 'do you have a second job' to 'how many jobs to you have'.
In this way we will find out how many jobs the LFS does not capture at all, without adding much to the response burden.
Eurostat

3. LAMAS exchange of views
In the exchange of views we see, not surprisingly, that there is a very large majority for not adding further variables to measure working time
We also see that 2/3 of you are in favour of the task force 2 proposal of revising EXIST2J, as just presented.
Eurostat

4. Comments received (reasons for 'no')
Small target population
'Job' is an unclear concept
Increased response burden
Not clear why the information is needed
The reasons those against this proposal have given are:
Small target population size: for sure in some countries yes, but not worse than the current EXIST2J. So why not try to find out how many jobs we don’t capture at all?
Job concept: Possibly yes, but if we cannot define that we are in trouble with measuring employment/unemployment, so it is not a very good argument for not asking about (third) jobs
Response burden: Is it really more burdensome to answer 'do you have another job?' than 'how many other jobs do you have?' ?
The information is useful for finding out how many jobs there are that we don’t capture the hours of, without adding any variables to the LFS
Eurostat

5. LAMAS is invited to discuss :
Do the presented comments against revising EXIST2J overshadow the value of knowing how many jobs the LFS does not capture?
So, summing up, and opening the floor: Should we revise EXIST2J or not?
Eurostat