Enquiries, Sources – Job Statistics (JOBSTAT)Overview

Short description	Quarterly job statistics have been gathered since 1925. JOBSTAT is a survey of 62,000 secondary and tertiary sector businesses to produce labour market indicators for Switzerland.
Responsible agency	Swiss Federal Statistical Office
Responsible service	Economic Surveys
Responsible person and information	Dr. Francis Saucy, 032 713 63 62, francis.saucy@bfs.admin.ch Information: 032 713 64 00 info.arbeit@bfs.admin.ch
Conducted by	Swiss Federal Statistical Office (SFSO)
Legal basis	Swiss Federal Ordinance of 30 June 1993
Type of enquiry	The survey is based on a random sampling of businesses (local units) drawn from the Business Register. This sample is broken down according to economic sector, major region and size (measured in full-time job equivalents) during the Business Census. Respondents are asked to fill out questionnaires, which can either be hardcopy or electronic. The latter type can be filled out and submitted over the Internet, sent/received via e-mail or saved to diskette or other media.
Statistical basis and units of enquiry	Jobs (domestic concept; jobs with at least 6 hours per week) in secondary and tertiary businesses lasting at least twenty hours per week. This does not include: Jobs in the primary sector non-company jobs (persons working for a private household, self-employed but not owner of one's own company)
Features registered	Jobs statistics presented according to: Sex + NOGA economic divisions + type of workweek (full-time or part-time, in %) Sex + economic sectors + main regions Distribution of cross-border workers according to gender Indicators relating to job recruitment challenges and labour market outlook for a given selection of NOGA economic divisions main regions Number of vacancies for a given selection of NOGA economic divisions main regions + means combined with
Degree of regionalisation	Switzerland and main regions
Date survey conducted	Last working day of each quarter (March, June, September & December)
Periodicity	Quarterly
Available since	1925; available in electronic form since 1992.
Statistical quality of data	Variation coefficient below 0.5 % for total employment (below 1% per economic sector; below 2% per major region + economic sector)
Revision	2003, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011 Remarque: The JOBSTAT and the Employment Statistics (ES) approach the labour market from different angles but with related concepts: Jobs for the JOBSTAT and persons employed for the ES. For more information on the differences between these two statistics: Comparison available in French and German
Last Update	13.12.2011

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