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ONS signs £8m deal with Randstad to fix UK employment data issues

ONS signs £8m deal with Randstad to fix UK employment data issues

Danny Romero
| January 23, 2025
Randstad building face and logo
Photo credit: ID 280104281 © Svleusden | Dreamstime.com

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Under pressure over the quality of its data, the UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) last month agreed to an £8 million deal with Randstad, the world’s largest staffing firm, to recruit interviewers to help improve the reliability of its labour force survey (LFS), according to a report by The Guardian. Providing monthly snapshots on jobs, the survey is one of the most important datasets used by the government and the Bank of England when setting interest rates and making decisions affecting millions of households.

However, economists warn policymakers are “flying blind” amid issues with the survey caused by low response rates, which the ONS admitted last month could take until 2027 to fix.

Under the terms of the £8 million contract, the ONS will use Randstad to hire field interviewers, who drive to knock on the doors of homes across the UK, nudging people to complete its online surveys.

The government statistics agency will use 148 agency staff recruited through Randstad to add to its 549-strong permanent workforce. It also plans to use Alexander Mann Solutions to hire about 200 face-to-face interviewers by the end of May 2025.

Unions representing ONS staff said the recruitment drive reflected deep-rooted problems at the agency, including low pay, cuts from the government and battered staff morale.

Fran Heathcote, the general secretary of the PCS trade union, told The Guardian, “Rather than giving huge sums of money to an agency to provide what would be a temporary fix, ONS management would be better investing in addressing long term recruitment and retentions issues.”

Randstad said it was committed to providing workers with competitive pay and benefits that meet or exceed industry standards. An ONS spokesperson added that it was responding to the challenge of falling survey response rates in several ways, including recruiting more interviewers, as it prepared to launch a “transformed labour force survey” as a long-term solution.

The latest figures published on 21 January showed a rise in unemployment, in one of the most closely watched data releases before the Bank of England’s rate decision.