Impacts of migration on labour market - Essay Example

The best design depends on the research question as well as the orientation of the researcher. The UK National Statistics will provide the much needed secondary information through the UK Labour Forces Survey data. This method is most appropriate for collecting information about the impacts of migration in the UK labour markets. Only the secondary data is used in this study. The design is also suitable because it gives an in-depth description of the phenomena in their existing setting. This fits well when describing how migration has affected the labor market in terms of employment and other sectors of the economy.

Descriptive survey is also preferred because it is economical in collecting data from over a large sample with high data turn over. The study have both qualitative and quantitative approaches since the research will need to survey the respondents in various variables such as ethnicity, nationality, country of origin and many others. This will be an appropriate variable in collecting and summarizing data that will be used in analyzing the impacts of migration in the UK labour market. This research strategy has been considered necessary because of its ability to view comprehensively and in detail the major questions raised during the LFS survey.

Data sources The study will lie mainly on secondary data sources. The main data source that will be used in the analysis is the UK Labour Forces Survey (LFS). The United Kingdom Labour Forces Survey is a sample of households living at private addresses in the Unite Kingdom. The main objective of LFS is the provision of vital information regarding United Kingdom labour market that can be then utilized in developing, managing, evaluation, and reporting important facts about the labour market policies.

Office of the National Statistics is responsible for conducting LFS. Apart from census, Labour Forces Survey is the only comprehensive sources of information about all aspects of the labour market. Since the first Labour Forces Survey that was conducted in 1992, the sample size has been maintained at about 60,000 households in the United Kingdom in each quarter. This sample size represents about 0.2% of the total UK population. While conducting the Labour Forces Survey, the respondents are asked questions regarding personal circumstances such as: ethnicity, country of birth, nationality, and year of arrival in the United Kingdom; and their labour market status during a certain period normally 1-4 weeks before the survey.

The Labour Forces Survey is a rotating panel dataset. That is, respondents are interviewed for five consecutive quarters and then leave the sample. In every quarter, one fifth of the sample is interviewed for the first time, one for the second time, and so on. Individuals are asked about their wage in their first and fifth interview only (Dustman, Glitz & Frattini 2008, p.11). The LFS was preferred for this study because it allows for intertemporal comparison of data. In addition, the LFS comprises of population weights, which allows for production of tables which give population estimates.

It is worth noting that, the construction of population weights does not consider the concept of country of birth or nationality. The researcher has utilized the LFS for the years 1994-2010. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS Figure 1 shows employment rate in the UK between 1994 and 2010. The employment rate is also divided into four main categories (UK