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Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.The Labour Force Survey (LFS) is a unique source of articulated information using international definitions of employment and unemployment and economic inactivity, together with a wide range of related topics such as occupation, training, hours of work and personal characteristics of household members aged 16 and over. The first LFS in the UK was conducted in 1973, under the terms of a Regulation derived from the Treaty of Rome, and the provision of information for the Statistical Office of the European Communities (SOEC) continues to be one of the reasons for carrying out the survey on an annual basis. The survey was carried out biennially in both Northern Ireland and Great Britain from 1973 to 1983 and was increasingly used by UK government departments to obtain information which would assist in the framing of social and economic policy. Following a change in the requirements of the EC regulation, from 1984 an annual survey was conducted and results referred to the spring months of each year. In March 1992 the GB portion of the survey moved onto a quarterly cycle and in December 1994 a quarterly survey was introduced in Northern Ireland. Two-fifths of each quarterly dataset over four quarters (Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter) is combined to produce an annual dataset, which in turn is eight-fifths larger than a standard quarterly dataset (the standard QLFS quarterly datasets, which include the Northern Ireland quarterly data, are deposited at UKDA by the Office for National Statistics, and held under GN:33246). The survey aims to provide government and external customers with data relating to the socio-economic circumstances of the Northern Ireland population on a regular basis. The LFS is the biggest regular household survey in Northern Ireland, providing a rich source of information on the labour force using internationally agreed concepts and definitions. The LFS has been designed to...