Media release                                                                                  30 August 2020

Stats SA announces further delay in the release of QLFS Q2 results

Statistics South Africa regrets to announce a further delay in the release of the Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS), Quarter 2 2020 results, in light of a new collection methodology imposed by COVID-19 restrictions.

The national statistics office suspended its fieldwork and face-to-face methods of administering questionnaires in the aftermath of lockdown imposed in the country on the 27th of March 2020 as part of measures to deal with the novel coronavirus outbreak.

“We got our fieldworkers off the field, re-organised our operations, and introduced the Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing method,” said Statistician-General Risenga Maluleke at the statistical agency’s head office at ISIbalo House in Pretoria.

Mr Maluleke said additional data confrontation and analysis, based on historical data, needed to be done before the Quarter 2 2020 data can be published.

“This process is taking longer than anticipated, and has resulted in additional delays to the publication date. The QLFS Q2 2020 results will therefore be published before the end of September 2020.”

Stats SA acknowledges the importance of this dataset, particularly in light of the impact of COVID-19 on employment. It is for this reason that we are taking particular care to ensure that the data that we release meets international standards. We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience this delay is causing to the QLFS data users.

For technical inquiries contact:

Malerato Mosiane

Chief Director: Labour Statistics

Cell: 082 888 2449     Email: maleratom@statssa.gov.za

For media enquiries contact:

Felicia Sithole

Cell: 076 430 0693     Email: felicias@statssa.gov.za