Quarterly Labour Force Survey 2025, Quarter 3
South Africa, 2025
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zaf-statssa-qlfs-2025-q3-v1
Quarterly Labour Force Survey 2025, Quarter 3
QLFS 2025-3
| Name | Country code |
|---|---|
| South Africa | zaf |
Labour Force Survey
The Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) is a household-based sample survey conducted by Statistics South Africa (Stats SA). It collects data on the labour market activities of individuals aged 15 years or older who live in South Africa.
Sample survey data [ssd]
Individuals
Version
v1: Edited, anonymised dataset for public distribution
2025-12
This version was retrieved by DataFirst from StatsSA on 9th December 2025
Scope
INDIVIDUALS: labour market activity, labour preferences, labour market history, demographic characteristics, marital status, employment status, education, grants, tax.
From 2010 the income data collected by South Africa's Quarterly Labour Force Survey is no longer provided in the QLFS dataset (except for a brief return in QLFS 2010 Q3 which may be an error). Possibly because the data is unreliable at the level of the quarter, Statistics South Africa now provides the income data from the QLFS in an annualised dataset called Labour Market Dynamics in South Africa (LMDSA). The datasets for LMDSA are available from DataFirst's website.
Coverage
The survey has national coverage
The data is at the provincial and metropolitan level, as well as by geographic type (urban/traditional/farms)
The QLFS sample covers the non-institutional population of South Africa with one exception. The only institutional subpopulation included in the QLFS sample are individuals in worker's hostels. Persons living in private dwelling units within institutions are also included in the enumeration. For example, within a school compound, one would enumerate the schoolmaster's house and the teachers' accommodation, as these are private dwellings. Students living in a dormitory on the school compound would, however, be excluded.
Producers and sponsors
| Name | Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Statistics South Africa | Government of South Africa |
Study authorization
| Agency name | Affiliation | Abbreviation |
|---|---|---|
| Statistics South Africa | Government of South Africa | StatsSA |
Data collection by organs of state in South Africa is authorised by the Statistics Act, 1999, and the Statistics Amendment Act, 2024
Sampling
The QLFS uses a master sampling frame that is used by several household surveys conducted by Statistics South Africa. This wave of the QLFS is based on the 2013 master frame, which was created based on the 2011 census. There are 3324 PSUs in the master frame and roughly 33 000 dwelling units. The sample for the QLFS is based on a stratified two-stage design with probability proportional to size (PPS) sampling of PSUs in the first stage, and sampling of dwelling units (DUs) with systematic sampling in the second stage. For each quarter of the QLFS, a quarter of the sampled dwellings are rotated out of the sample. These dwellings are replaced by new dwellings from the same PSU or the next PSU on the list. For more information see the statistical release.
The sample weights were constructed to account for the following: the original selection probabilities (design weights); adjustments for PSUs that were sub-sampled or segmented; excluded population from the sampling frame (EAs with insufficient DUs); non-response; weight trimming; benchmarking to known population estimates from the Demographic Analysis Chief Directorate within Stats SA; and raking to bias-adjusted control estimates from a bias-adjustment procedure to compensate for the non-coverage bias in the sample due to only observing those households that can be contacted by telephone.
Data Collection
| Start | End |
|---|---|
| 2025-07 | 2025-09 |
| Start date | End date |
|---|---|
| 2025-07 | 2025-09 |
| Name | Affiliation | Abbreviation |
|---|---|---|
| Statistics South Africa | Government of South Africa | StatsSA |
Data was collected using face-to-face interviewing with CAPI questionnaires
Distributor information
| Organization name | Affiliation | URL |
|---|---|---|
| DataFirst | University of Cape Town | https://www.datafirst.uct.ac.za/ |
Data Access
| Name | Affiliation | URL | |
|---|---|---|---|
| DataFirst | University of Cape Town | support.data1st.org | support@data1st.org |
Creative Commons Attribution only CC-BY license
Statistics South Africa. Quarterly Labour Force Survey 2025: Quarter 3 [dataset]. Version 1. Pretoria: Statistics South Africa [producer], 2025. Cape Town: DataFirst [distributor], 2025. DOI:
Users of the data must send DataFirst a copy of or link to any publication based on the data
Public access
Contacts
| Name | Affiliation | URL | |
|---|---|---|---|
| DataFirst Helpdesk | University of Cape Town | support@data1st.org | support.data1st.org |
Metadata production
| Name | Affiliation | Role |
|---|---|---|
| DataFirst | University of Cape Town | Metadata producer |
2025-12
Metadata version
Version 1
2025-12