Dear Sarah,
Thank you for your letter outlining your plans to pause your rolling 12-month quarterly employment publications whilst continuing to publish only the calendar year (January to December) employment estimates. Lower response rates and a smaller sample have led to data quality concerns. You have seen increased volatility and uncertainty in the estimates, making it harder to detect changes over time, limiting the usefulness of DCMS’s rolling 12-month quarterly publications.
I am satisfied that you have engaged with key stakeholders, both internal and external to assure yourself that the suspension of this publication will not result in an unmet user need. Whilst recognising the challenges for users during this time, statistics should be robust and therefore, I support your decision.
Our Labour Market and Welfare domain team will continue to engage with your team on this matter.
Yours sincerely
Ed Humpherson
Director General for OSR