General Background

The stability and growth of a countrys' economy hinges on its ability to produce goods and services for both domestic and international use. Labor represents and important factor of production, hence, the improvemnet of the quality of the labor force and efforts to make it more productive and responsive to growth are necessary for the development of the economy. A clear knowledge and understanding of the size, composition and other characteristics of the segment of the population is a big step in this direction. A continuing supply of data on labor force is indispensable to national as well as local development planning.

The Labor Force Survey (LFS) is a nationwide survey of households conducted by the National Statistics Office (NSO) quarterly to gather data on the demographic and socio-economic characteristics of the population.