ONS Update on data collection and...........>

UK DATA: ONS Update on data collection and computation amid Covid-19 crisis

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Data collection is proving challenging for the ONS due to containment measures,

it said Weds. Regarding jobs data, the balance between unemployed and

economically inactive people is likely to change, ONS said. The reduction in the

response rate (no face-to-face interviews anymore) leads to four challenges:

weighting the survey, imputing for non-response, seasonal adjustments and

quality of the survey. Furloughed workers (under the CJRS scheme) will be

classified as employed, however there will be a reduction of hours worked due to

the scheme (reduced output in the economy). The ONS captures the actual wages

people receive under the CJRS scheme. This leads to a challenge of the income

and output measure of GDP which, hopefully solved by deducting subsidies

(payments through CJRS) from the income in the economy. Price data of several

products will be unavailable in the current situation and statistician are

assuming that prices move in line with other prices in the economy (See MNI

story 28/4). This will lead to a reweighting, but not change to the basket.