Machbarkeitsstudie Weiterentwicklung Betriebsbefragungen

Abstract

"Establishment surveys provide valuable data for research, policy advice, and official statistics. Their scope ranges from providing panel data for international research to providing quarterly data to Eurostat within weeks after the end of each quarter. Recent crises increased the importance of promptly gathering and making available relevant information from an establishment perspective. To meet these diverse demands, the IAB conducts two long-standing, large-scale establishment surveys – the IAB Establishment Panel and the IAB Job Vacancy Survey. As part of the BMAS-funded project “Promoting Innovative Approaches to Strengthen Data Infrastructure and Methods”, the IAB is conducting the “Feasibility Study for the Advancement of Establishment Surveys at the IAB”. This report, prepared for the BMAS, presents preliminary results addressing the project's two key questions. First, can the existing surveys (the IAB Job Vacancy Survey and the IAB Establishment Panel) be extended with high-frequency elements? Second, is it feasible to integrate the two surveys into a single survey? The findings in this report are not yet conclusive, as the project will continue beyond the BMAS-funded phase. Regarding the integration of both surveys into one survey, different approaches were and will be examined as a part of the project. Key conditions for integration include maintaining a panel survey of establishments, fulfilling data delivery obligations to Eurostat, collecting information on hiring processes, and providing relevant data at a higher frequence than annually. Regarding the integration of high-frequency elements, experiments were conducted in both surveys to assess the impact of high-frequency elements, particularly on expected response rates. The IAB Establishment Panel implemented an additional mid-year telephone survey in 2024 between the main surveys of 2023 and 2024. This addition tests establishments’ willingness to participate in additional surveys and the feasibility of such an approach. Only random subsets of first-time and repeat participants were invited to uncover the mid-year survey’s impact on future response rates. The initial results indicate that a mid-year survey of this scale is feasible. However, only a relatively small proportion of establishments agreed to be contacted for additional surveys. Among the contacted establishments, the actual response rate met expectations. Further analysis will examine the effect of the mid-year survey on future participation. The IAB Job Vacancy Survey regularly conducts quarterly follow-up surveys. Within these follow-up surveys, a survey experiment was conducted to test the introduction of additional high-frequency questions and the impact of longer questionnaires on response rates. The experiment split participants into two groups, one receiving a 2-page questionnaire and the other a 4-page version. The results showed no significant differences in response rates between the groups or compared to the status quo (a 1-page questionnaire). However, regarding response burden, the 2-page version seemed slightly better at maintaining long-term participation without increasing respondent strain. Long-term effects on response rates will be examined further. The preliminary results from both experiments jointly suggest that extending both establishment surveys with high-frequency elements is feasible. However, final results on the impact on response rates are still pending. Regarding the integration of both surveys into one survey, a rotating panel approach was evaluated, dividing the annual panel sample into four subsamples surveyed quarterly. This approach could enable more frequent data collection while providing an attractive panel dataset for research. Data delivery obligations to Eurostat can be met with this approach, though doing so would require specially tailored extrapolation methods. While integrating the questionnaires from the two surveys is generally feasible, some previously collected content would have to be omitted or collected less frequently. A rotating panel would also demand significantly more resources, both financial and human, compared to the current IAB Establishment Panel. Moving from the current surveys to a rotating panel does not seem feasible without creating breaks in existing time-series." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Cite article

Bellmann, L., Gürtzgen, N., Hensgen, S., Kohaut, S., Kubis, A., Oberfichtner, M. & Pirralha, A. (2025): Machbarkeitsstudie Weiterentwicklung Betriebsbefragungen. Teilprojekt des BMAS-Projekts zur „Förderung innovativer Ansätze zur Stärkung von Dateninfrastruktur und Methoden“. (IAB-Forschungsbericht 02/2025), Nürnberg, 124 p. DOI:10.48720/IAB.FB.2502