Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.
The Short-Term Employment Surveys (STES) are three statutory, quarterly surveys of private sector businesses. The surveys ask businesses for their number of employees (male/female/full-time/part-time) on a specified date (the second or third Friday of March, June, September or December). Online questionnaires are sent to a sample of approximately 37,000 businesses each quarter. The combined surveys cover all sectors of the private sector economy and all industries in England, Scotland and Wales (Great Britain) with the exception of 'agriculture, forestry and fishing' and 'private households'. Northern Ireland businesses are not approached via STES. The STES data feeds into the quarterly UK Workforce Jobs estimates published by the Office for National Statistics.Linking to other business studiesThese data contain Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR) reference numbers. These are anonymous but unique reference numbers assigned to business organisations. Their inclusion allows researchers to combine different business survey sources together. Researchers may consider applying for other business data to assist their research.Latest edition informationFor the tenth edition (June 2024), new Construction Survey, Monthly Business Survey and Quarterly Business Survey data files have been added for December 2023 and the September 2023 files have been revised. The Monthly Business Survey and Quarterly Business Survey data files for June 2021 to June 2023 have been also been updated to correct a minor issue identified with the variable SELECTION_TO.
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The STES data consist of the following three separate surveys which are all available in quarterly data files:Monthly Business Survey (stes_mbs_009)Quarterly Business Survey (stes_qbs_139)Construction Survey (stes_constr_228)All three surveys include variables for the number of employees broken down by:Full-time malesFull-time femalesPart-time malesPart-time femalesAlso included are details about the business such as:Reporting Unit ReferenceStatus of reporting unitIDBR selection classificationSizeband cellTurnoverStandard Industrial Classification 2003Standard Industrial Classification 2007NUTS1 region of Reporting Unit
Multi-stage stratified random sample
Self-administered questionnaire: Web-based (CAWI)
