Labour Market Dynamics from the Survey of Family, Income and Employment

Abstract

With the release of the first year's results from the longitudinal Survey of Family, Income and Employment Dynamics (SOFIE) in June and October 2004,Statistics New Zealand signalled the availability for the first time in New Zealand of dynamic data showing how an individual's circumstances change over time. This paper uses SOFIE information about spells of labour force involvement and participation in education or training to demonstrate the potential of dynamic data, to highlight the critical differences between SOFIE and Household Labour Force Survey data, and to point to the directions for future research as successive waves of SOFIE data are accumulated.