What these are
Three companion indices that rank countries by how well their labour market data is covered in ILOSTAT, each looking at a different type of data source:
| Index | Source | Criteria |
|---|---|---|
| Labour Force Survey Coverage Index | Labour force surveys, or labour modules in other household surveys | Coverage + frequency + recency (plus pending) |
| Population Census Coverage Index | Population (& housing) censuses | Coverage + recency |
| Administrative Data Coverage Index | Registers, social security, labour inspection, industrial relations | Coverage + frequency + recency |
How the score works
Each country gets sub-scores from 0 to 100, and the overall score is their weighted average (the weights are adjustable live on each site; they are normalised, so only their relative sizes matter).
Coverage
The share of that index's key indicators — weighted by importance, with headline indicators counting more — for which the country has at least one qualifying datapoint (from the right source type) within a coverage window.
Frequency & regularity (LFS & Administrative only)
The average of a periodicity score (monthly > quarterly > annual > irregular, based on the fastest cadence the country sustains for its headline indicators) and a regularity score (the share of recent years with data, which penalises gaps). Censuses are roughly decennial, so the Census index omits this criterion.
Recency
Based on the age of the most recent datapoint, decaying from full marks for current data to zero past an age limit. The Census index uses a longer, decennial window.
Data source & source filtering
All figures come from ILOSTAT. Each index counts only observations from its source type — ILOSTAT tags every observation with its source, and we filter on that. The LFS index counts household surveys (not censuses, administrative records or establishment surveys); the Census index counts population/housing censuses; the Administrative index counts register-, social-security-, inspection- and industrial-relations-based sources.
Pending data (LFS)
ILOSTAT re-publishes national data with a lag, so a country's newest figures often sit on its national statistics office (NSO) site first. For tracked countries the LFS index lists the periods released by the NSO but not yet in ILOSTAT, with a source link.
Citizenship or place of birth
The "employment by citizenship or place of birth" indicator prefers citizenship data, and falls back to place-of-birth data only where citizenship is unavailable; each country's panel shows which was used.
Countries and regions
Countries are grouped into the ILO's five broad regions — Africa, the Americas, the Arab States, Asia and the Pacific, and Europe and Central Asia — which drive the region filter on each site. The grouping comes from a fixed country-to-region lookup, so any area ILOSTAT reports that isn't in that lookup appears as "Other."
"Other" is mostly non-sovereign dependent territories and special areas — for example Hong Kong and Macau, Puerto Rico and Guam, Réunion, Guadeloupe and Martinique, Bermuda, Aruba and Curaçao, the Channel Islands, and Kosovo and Taiwan. Region affects only filtering and grouping; it has no bearing on a country's score.
Caveats
- Sites shown with a yellow banner are on illustrative sample data; live ILOSTAT figures load once the weekly pipeline has run.
- A few indicator codes are best-effort and should be verified against ILOSTAT (some administrative series, working-age population, LU4, and the citizenship/place-of-birth series).
- The NSO release dates behind the pending feature are illustrative starters to verify per country.
- Censuses rarely produce some indicators (hours, earnings, informality, LU4), which legitimately show low coverage in the Census index.
Use & attribution
ILOSTAT data is licensed under CC BY 4.0; these indices adapt it (filtering to a source type and scoring). They are independent and are not published or endorsed by the ILO. Suggested citation format:
Empstat (year), [Index name]: Country rankings of … coverage in ILOSTAT, [subdomain] (accessed [date]).