ONS to spend millions on temp workers to fix ‘unusable’ UK employment data

The National Statistics Office (ONS) signed a deal worth 8 million pounds to employ hundreds of temporary workers in an attempt to fix what economists warn that it is “almost unused” data on employment in the UK.

This step comes amid increasing criticism of the main workforce surveyed by the Agency (LFS), on which policymakers at the Bank of England depend to direct interest rate decisions.

According to the agreement reached last month, the Randstad Employment Agency will assign 148 of the temporary field interviews to support the 549 people’s National Statistics Office team. Meanwhile, another employment company, Alexander Man Solosh, is expected to bring about 200 additional people to conduct interviews by May 2025. These new employees will visits directly to families, to encourage them to complete the questionnaires online.

The National Statistics Office faces low response rates in the workforce scanning since the outbreak of the epidemic, when the visits stopped to the threshold of the house. Participation has recovered from a low level of 12.7 percent in 2023 to about 20 percent, but it remains much lower than 40 percent registered in 2019. As a result, data on work arrangements for the 45 million British workforce depends on Only 47,000 responses.

Economists have raised fears that this data gap hinders the decision -making process at the Bank of England, especially in the period before the main monetary policy meeting on February 6. “Fears about the quality of data derived from the UK’s workforce scanning it is actually unusable at the present time,” said Andrew Godwin, the chief British economist at Oxford Economics University.

Beyond labor market data, the National Statistics Office also postponed a separate project to integrate detailed information on the supermarket scanner in the national inflation basket. The agency said that it is “wisdom” to postpone the launch scheduled for March 2025 for a year, due to the complexity and importance of data.

The temporary field roles announced through Randstad 12.55 pounds per hour outside London and 14.85 pounds in the capital for 22 to 30 hours a week. While these wages go beyond the new national living wages of 12.21 pounds to be released next April, union officials say the National Statistics Office must focus on long -term employment and wage structures to address deep -rooted moral issues.

Fran Heathkot, the Secretary -General of the PCS, criticized the cost of using external sources of an agency, and called for “addressing employment issues and long -term retaining” instead. The rate of rotation of employees in the National Statistics Office is about 25 percent, and internal surveys indicate dissatisfaction with management and wages.

“Political and economic decisions are taken against the background of the data that can be collected more effectively. They should wake up and smell the smell of coffee.”

In recognition of the problem, the National Statistics Office said it is working to increase the number of interviewers and intends to launch a “transformer workforce” as part of a long -term solution. She also recently tested a shorter version of her questionnaire to encourage more participation and pledged to provide more updates this spring.

A spokesman for the National Statistics Office said: “We are striving for a sincere and comprehensive culture that encourages employee comments,” said a spokesman for the National Statistics Office. “We recently had a review of the lessons learned to ensure listening to the opinions of the participants in the variable workforce project.”

Anxiety about data gaps comes at a time when the latest official figures showed an increase in unemployment, which increases uncertainty about how England will view the economic track in the UK while setting interest rates in the coming weeks.

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