Telephone Survey on COVID-19 and the Labor Market (ECOVID-ML)

The Telephone Survey on COVID-19 and the Labor Market (ECOVID-ML) was designed to collect basic information on the effect of the health contingency on the labor market and provide timely information to decision makers.

The pandemic caused by the SARS-COV2 coronavirus that causes the disease known as COVID-19 has encouraged governments to take measures to prevent it from spreading and to reduce human losses, by adopting social distancing and the suspension of non-essential activities as the main measures.

In Mexico, as in the rest of the countries, there is a need for timely information on the effects of the pandemic, so that decision makers and public policy designers can implement actions to confront it.

As a result of the measures adopted on March 23rd and 30th by the federal health authority to restrict the mobility of the population and suspend face-to-face field operations, the Governing Board of the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) gave instructions to suspend the operations of its face-to-face household surveys on March 31st, 2020. This was done through the press release 142, until sanitary conditions allow the gradual reactivation of field operations.

The INEGI, complying with the commitment to provide society with relevant, timely and quality information, has implemented a strategy for the conduction of telephone surveys as a means that addresses governmental and institutional recommendations to protect workers and informants. At the same time, it makes it possible to gather information on the effects of the pandemic on the labor market.

The objective of this document is to provide an overview of the design of the Telephone Survey on COVID-19 and the Labor Market (ECOVID-ML), conducted to an independent sample of housing units selected from the Master Housing Framework and to a sample of telephone numbers selected randomly, from the National Numbering Plan of the Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFT).

To obtain basic complementary information on occupation and employment and the effect on the labor market during the pandemic caused by COVID-19.

Specific objectives

• To identify the employed population and the basic characteristics of the work context.
• To identify the unemployed population, the job searching status, the willingness to work and the reason why they did not look for a job.
• To collect information on the absent people who will return to work at the end of the health contingency, as an approach to the characteristics of a job loss.
• To collect information on how the population is coping with the pandemic with an emphasis on work, occupation and employment.
• To know the means by which people are kept informed about the situation and the protection measures that they follow due to the health contingency.

April, May, June and July 2020.

This survey was designed in order to collect information on the impact of COVID-19 on the labor market. The design uses the information available from the International Labour Organization (ILO) to measure the impacts of the pandemic on the labor market and the results of the meetings that have been held along with the communication with members of the Work Group of Labor Market Indicators of the CEA-ECLAC, coordinated by the National Institute of Statistics (INE) of Chile and the International Labour Organization.¹

It should be noted that the information available to measure the effects of the pandemic is of general nature² and, in particular, on labor issues. The ILO provides a series of recommendations in this regard, which were used as reference to define the section concerning occupation and employment of the survey³. However, the measurement of the impacts of the pandemic on the situation of households, health and complementary information on the labor market is scarce and the most immediate references are the situations of similar events.

In general, the pandemic represents an enormous challenge for the statistical offices around the world. Especially in countries were household surveys are conducted face to face, which at an international level, it is more than 80% of the countries that are members of the ILO. In the case of Mexico, it is the first time that the survey of workforce has completely suspended its conduction and that in a short time, had designed a strategy to generate information on the labor market that would guarantee the continuity of the information. Based on available information, research and reflection together with other countries and within the General Directorate of Sociodemographic Statistics, the questions and content of the survey questionnaire were defined.

The ILO developed a quick guide to compile statistics on the workforce that should be adopted to the national context and the changing situations of each country. The guide emphasizes on applying international standards to maintain coherence, as much as possible, with main workforce indicators and to expand statistics and analysis beyond basic labor market indicators.⁴

The population aged 18 years and over who uses a telephone constitutes the study universe of the workforce in this survey, in which two categories are distinguished: the Economically Active Population (EAP) and the Non Economically Active Population (PNEA). The EAP identifies the employed population and the open unemployed population, while the PNEA distinguishes those available for work from those not available.

The reference period of the survey is the week before the conduction of the interview in order to determine the activity and occupation status of the people. That is, to identify who is employed and who is not, distinguishing in turn, from these two, who is unemployed and who is simply not economically active.

Priority aspects to monitor the impact of the pandemic
In the case of the ECOVID-ML, the topics relating to the employed population were determined considering the immediate impact the pandemic has on the income, the working days, the work organization, the strategies to face it and the use of time due to social distancing.

Additionally, questions were incorporated about the impact on the housing unit members, the loss of jobs and businesses, the impact on income, how to deal with theses impacts, and the health measures adopted during social distancing.

What is sought with this is to collect additional information to have elements that make it possible for us to approach the knowledge of some dimensions affected by the pandemic, but without the intention of being exhaustive.

Thematic content of the questionnaire
The thematic content of the survey is organized into seven sections:

• a) Characteristics of the housing unit
• b) Characteristics of the informant
• c) Activity status
• d) Search of the unemployed population
• e) Labor context
• f) Health contingency at work
• g) Health contingency in housing units

• a) Characteristics of the housing units
  • Number of people in the housing unit
  • Gender and age of the people
  • Activities they carry out (number of people)
  • They have a computer, Internet, printer, landline in the housing unit

• b) Sociodemographic characteristics of the informant.
  • Gender
  • Age
  • Level of schooling

• c) Occupational characteristics of the population.
  • Population aged 18 years and over.
    • Economic activity status: Economically Active Population (EAP) and Non Economically Active Population (PNEA)
    • Employment status: Employed population and unemployed population
    • Status of the availability to work: available PNEA and unavailable PNEA
    • Main reason why they did not work last week
  • Employed population (Main job)
    • Main occupation
    • Job position
    • Number of workers
    • Sector of economic activity
    • Availability of premises to work
    • Workplace
    • Hours worked in the last week
    • Hours usually worked per week
    • Reason why they did not work the usual hours
    • Payment method
    • Access to health care through work
    • Year and month in which they started their current job
  • Independent workers
    • Main problem that their business is facing
    • How they face the problem
  • Unemployed population
    • Looking for a job in the last month
    • Availability to work
    • Willingness to work
    • Main reason why they did not look for a job in the last month
  • Non Economically Active Population available to work that will return to their job at the end of the health contingency.
    • Main occupation
    • Job position
    • Number of workers
    • Sector of economic activity
    • Availability of premises to work
    • Workplace
    • Hours worked in the last week
    • Hours usually worked per week
    • Reason why they did not work usual hours
    • Payment method
    • Access to health care through work
    • Year and month in which they started their current job
    • Independent workers
      • Main problem that their business is facing
      • How they face the problem

• d) Health contingency at work
  • Working from home
  • They have the necessary equipment
  • They took any training course
  • They taught the course
  • They took any computer or language course
  • Safety and hygiene conditions in the workplace
  • Changes in the working day
  • Changes in earned income due to work
  • Type of working day
  • They were suspended from their job
  • They received a payment during the suspension
  • They received an aid from the enterprise
  • They received a government or family aid
  • Voluntary work
  • Home and school activities

• e) Health contingency in housing units
  • Compliance with social distancing
  • Loss of employment or closure of business of any member
  • Impact on family income
  • Way to face the decrease in income
  • They are informed about the health situation
  • Means by which they are informed about it
  • Sanitary measures they apply

• National Occupation Classification System (SINCO), 2011
• Classification for Economic Activities in Households (CAEH), 2014

• ILO. Monitoring labour markets amid lockdowns to contain the COVID-19 virus: Essential labour force survey content and treatment of special groups. April 2020.
• Resolutions of the OECD, set out in what is called Standardised Unemployment Rates
• Report from the XIII International Conference of Labour Statisticians (CIET) of the International Labour Organization (ILO), which is about PEA statistics, employment, unemployment and underemployment.
• Report from the XIV CIET of the ILO, which addressed statistics of absences from work, impact of employment promotion programs on the measurement of employment and unemployment.
• Report from the XV CIET of the ILO, where the topic addressed was employment statistics in the informal sector.
• Report from the XVII CIET of the ILO, whose topics addressed were: measurement of underemployment and situations of inadequate employment, measurement of labor income, statistics of work accidents, as well as the guidelines for a statistical measurement of informal employment from the labor perspective.

April, May, June and July 2020.

National.

Not applied.

Sampling framework of ECOVID-ML
The ECOVID-ML sampling framework was formed drawn from from the National Numbering Plan, published by the Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFT) and updated to April 2020 and from which a random sample of telephone numbers was generated in each of the 32 states. The statistical design is probabilistic, therefore the results can be generalized at the national level, one-stage because the selection of the numbers was carried out in one stage, it is said to be stratified because each state is a design stratum.

Stratification
The design of the sample is stratified because each of the 32 states make up the design strata, within each state a random sample of telephone numbers has been independently selected.

Sample size
The sample size for each of the study domains was calculated for the open unemployment rate (TDA), considered as the main variable of the survey, and the one that requires the greater sample size, which guarantees that the estimates of the rest of the variables of interest are covered with this size.

A sample of telephone numbers at a national level was determined for each month of conduction:
April: 28 619 telephone numbers
May: 56 564 telephone numbers
June: 64 411 telephone numbers
July: 76 088 telephone numbers

Adjustment of expansion factors
The expansion factors were adjusted based on non-response, within the population projection, in the population coverage with a telephone, and by calibration to adjust for population structures.

April 2020: From April 27th to 30th, 2020.
May 2020: From May 11th to 29th, 2020.
June 2020: From June 11th to 30th, 2020.
July 2020: From July 10th to 31st, 2020