Linked Employer - Employee Data

The department's new "Linked Employer-Employee Data" project aims to examine questions about workers and their jobs that cannot be answered from employee or employer surveys alone.

When completed it is intended that a wide range of new information will be obtained without the collection of additional survey data.

More specifically it is expected the integrated data will allow research into:

• what types of firms create jobs
  
• what type of employment people move into when they leave the unemployment register
  
• what types of job placements result in the best long-term employment outcomes
  
• what types of employment provides the best progression pathway into “better” jobs for unemployed job seekers
  
• what types of firms have a positive impact on individual skill acquisition
  
• how skills are used and acquired in firms.
  

In time, integrated data is believed to offer new insights into the way in which the economy functions, aiding the design of policies to support growth, innovation and employment. In addition the integrated employer-employee data will support research into a wide range of policy questions including the Government’s education priorities by providing new information on how skills develop during an individual’s working life and the role of firms in this.

The first few years of the project will focus on linking employer and employee data, it is envisaged that the integration infrastructure will allow incorporation of administrative data (subject to privacy and confidentiality concerns) such as migration information, accident injury data, health data and education information. Capacity to achieve this larger data integration is being developed through the separate project developing integrated data to measure the incidence, number and cost of workplace accidents.