Ecuador

1. Title of the survey

Periodic Survey of Employment, Unemployment and Underemployment in urban areas of Ecuador (Encuesta Periódica sobre Empleo, Desempleo y Subempleo en el área urbana del Ecuador).

2. Organisation responsible for the survey

National Institute of Employment, Ministry of Labour and Human Resources (Instituto Nacional de Empleo (INEM), Ministerio de Trabajo y Recursos Humanos).

3. Coverage of the survey

(a) Geographical

The three principal cities of the country: Quito, Guayaquil and Cuenca.

(b) Persons covered

Persons residing in private dwellings, including members of the armed forces, provided they are considered as usual residents of the household.

Excluded are persons residing in collective households (hotels, hospitals, orphanages, barracks, convents, etc.).

Persons under 12 years of age are excluded from the employment module.

4. Periodicity of the survey

The survey carried out in Quito, Guayaquil and Cuenca is planned to be half-yearly. However, up to now, it has been conducted once a year in 1987 and 1988.

5. Reference period

The week previous to the interview week.

6. Topics covered by the survey

The survey provides information on employment, unemployment, underemployment, hours of work, wages and income, employment in the informal sector, duration of unemployment, discouraged workers, industry, occupation, status in employment, and level of education/qualifications.

7. Concepts and definitions

(a) Employment

Employed persons are "all persons aged 12 years and over who worked at least one hour during the reference week, or did not work but had a job from which they were absent because of holidays, sickness, study leave, etc."

"Also considered as employed are persons carrying out certain activities that they usually perform at home for income, although this work does not conform to the typical forms of work as employees or self-employed (such as manufacture of any product, doing anything at home for income, rendering any service, helping in a family business, etc.)."

Also considered as employed are :

  1. persons on temporary lay-off, provided they are not looking for work and have a formal attachment to their job;
  2. full-time or part-time workers who looked for another job during the reference week;
  3. persons who performed some work for pay or profit during the reference week, while being subject to compulsory schooling; or retired and receiving a pension; or registered as jobseekers at an employment office, or receiving unemployment benefits;
  4. full-time or part-time students working full time or part time;
  5. paid and unpaid apprentices and trainees;
  6. participants in employment promotion schemes;
  7. paid or unpaid family workers, including unpaid family workers temporarily absent from work (the reason for their absence being specified);
  8. private domestic servants.
  9. members of producers' co-operatives;
  10. volunteer and career members of the armed forces and members of civilian services equivalent to military service.

Excluded from the employed and from the economically active population are:

  1. persons only engaged in their own housework;
  2. persons doing unpaid community or voluntary social work;
  3. conscripts.

(b) Underemployment

"This comprises the following categories:
  1. employed persons who are visibly underemployed, i.e., who against their will work for less than the statutory hours of work (40 hours weekly), for the following reasons:
    1. reduction of economic activity.
    2. lack of raw materials, finance, customers or machinery,
    3. inability to find more work,
    4. inability to find another job.

  2. employed persons with an income who are invisibly underemployed, i.e., persons working 40 hours or more for an income below the statutory minimum wage.

  3. employed persons working in low-productivity activities, who must work for longer than normal working hours in order to obtain income sufficient to satisfy their needs. This subgroup constitutes the informal underemployment."

(c) Unemployment

Unemployed persons are "all persons aged 12 years and over who, during the reference period (the week previous to interview week and the four previous weeks), had no work, were available for work and had made specific efforts to find work as employees or self-employed persons."

This concept covers workers who were unemployed by reason of dismissal or resignation (unemployed persons with previous work experience), and first-time jobseekers (new workers).

The "specific efforts to find work" made by unemployed persons include: contacting friends or relatives, direct contact with employers, press or radio, public or private employment agency, taking steps to set up their own business or enterprise, etc.

Unemployed persons also include:

  1. persons laid off temporarily or for an indefinite period without pay, provided they are looking for work during the reference period (otherwise they are classified as employed or inactive);
  2. full-time or part-time students looking for full-time or part-time work.

Excluded from the unemployed and considered as inactive are:

  1. persons without work, currently available for work, who have made arrangements to start work in a new job at a date after the reference week (no time limit is set for the new job to begin);
  2. seasonal workers awaiting agricultural or other seasonal work.

(d) Hours of work

Questions are asked to establish the hours actually worked in all occupations during the reference week, and the hours "usually" worked, meaning the average number of hours worked in a typical week.

(e) Informal sector

Inquiries are made concerning the urban informal sector covering the following persons:
  1. Own-account workers and owners of small establishments (i.e., establishments of fewer than six workers), except workers classified as professionals;
  2. Employees and unpaid family workers in small establishments.

Excluded are persons working in small establishments in a line of business where there are no informal establishments (currency exchange offices, travel agencies, computer centres, airlines, etc.), and domestic workers in households and agricultural workers (who form a statistically residual category).

(f) Usual activity

This topic is not covered by the survey.

8. Classifications used

Employed persons, and unemployed persons with previous work experience are classified by industry and occupation. Only employed persons are classified by status in employment. Persons aged 6 years and over who are covered by the survey are classified by level of education.

(a) Industry

The latest version of the International Standard Industrial Classification of all Economic Activities (ISIC-1968) is used, and coding is done to the 4-digit level.

(b) Occupation

The International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO-1968) is used, and coding is done to the 4-digit level.

(c) Status in employment

This classification comprises ten groups and is compatible with the International Classification of Status in Employment (ICSE).

(d) Level of education/qualifications

The level of education is classified into seven groups, as follows:
  1. None,
  2. Uncompleted primary,
  3. Completed primary,
  4. Uncompleted secondary,
  5. Completed secondary,
  6. Uncompleted university,
  7. Completed university.

As well as formal education, the training received by all persons aged 12 years and over, and their speciality, are investigated.

This classification is linked to the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED-1976).

9. Sample size and design

(a) The sample frame

It is based on the census areas of the 1982 Census. Census areas are grouped together, based on the number of dwellings which range from 40 to 300 per area, and constitute the primary sampling units (PSUs). The sample frame is updated through quick counts in the cities surveyed, in order to identify the areas and buildings newly created between 1982 and 1987.

(b) The sample

It is based on a systematic (with two random starting points) three-stage stratified design; "paper" stratification is at the PSU level. The ultimate sampling unit is the dwelling and the sample is updated for each round of the survey.

For the 1987 survey, the size of the sample was: in Quito, 2,691 dwellings; in Guayaquil, 2,509 dwellings; and in Cuenca, 945 dwellings.

(c) Rotation

Not applied.

10. Field work

(a) Data collection

In 1987, information was collected in Quito from 9 to 22 November, in Cuenca from 9 to 15 November and in Guayaquil from 23 November to 7 December. It could not be collected simultaneously in all three cities because there were too few permanent technical employees of the INEM to do so.

Interviewers and supervisors and their refresher courses were the responsibility mainly of the INEM/UNDP/ILO project. In all, 80 interviewers and 23 supervisors were selected and were distributed in each city.

The corresponding information for the 1988 survey is not yet available.

(b) Substitution of ultimate sampling units

In case of absence or non-response, dwellings are not replaced.

11. Quality controls

Collected data are examined and coded, and a computer programme is used to check survey data.

12. Weighting the sample

The sample is expanded by using population projections (INEC 1985).

13. Sampling errors

These are not calculated.

14. Adjustments

(a) Population not covered

No adjustment is made. The geographical coverage of the survey is the three cities, whose total population represents 70 per cent of the urban population of the country.

(b) Under/overcoverage

No adjustment is made.

(c) Non-response

No adjustment is made.

The results of the dwellings investigated in 1987 were as follows:
QuitoGuayaquilCuencaTotal
Dwellings to be investigated 2,6912,5099456,145
Dwellings investigated 2,6892,5759846,248
Complete dwellings 2,4512,2568665,573
Incomplete dwellings 42612
Absent persons 4042587
Empty dwellings 607858196
Refusal to reply 271041132
Others 1079338238

15. Seasonal adjustment

No adjustment is made for seasonal variations.

16. Non-sampling errors

Not available.

17. History of the survey

The Instituto Nacional de Empleo (INEM) conducted the first Permanent Survey of Employment and Unemployment in the urban area of Ecuador in November 1987, as part of an INEM/UNDP/ILO project financed by the Banco Federal del Ecuador and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), with the assistance of the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

The second survey was carried out in November 1988, jointly with the National Multi-Purpose Survey (Encuesta Nacional de Propósitos Múltiples), the results of which are being processed.

18. Documentation

For the results of the survey, concepts and indicators, see:

Ministerio de Trabajo y Recursos Humanos, Instituto Nacional de Empleo: "Encuesta Permanente de Hogares, sobre Empleo, Desempleo y Subempleo, Quito, Guayaquil, Cuenca, Noviembre 1987" (Permanent Household Survey on Employment, Unemployment and Underemployment in Quito, Guayaquil and Cuenca) (Quito, December 1988).

Also available on request are the results of the survey in diskette form.

The results of the 1988 survey are being processed (in 1989).