The manual has two main objectives: (1) to explain the international concepts and definitions in more detail than could have been provided in the necessarily tightly worded text of the 1982 resolution; and (2) to provide technical guidelines on how to apply the international standards for collecting data on the economically active population through household surveys. To make it as self-contained as possible, general methodological issues (such as sampling, questionnaire design, field operations, data processing and data evaluation), in so far as they are relevant in the present context, are also discussed in the manual.

Custodian: ILO