WERS 2004 News

WERS 2004 Information and Advice Service - activities completed (added 19/08/2008): The WERS 2004 Information and Advice Service (WIAS) was established in February 2006 and was funded for a two year period. The funding has now come to an end, and so has all major activity from WIAS. This web-site will continue to remain live for the benefit of WERS 2004 Users and those interested in WERS 2004.

WERS 2004 Teaching Dataset (added 14/08/2008): A WERS 2004 Teaching Dataset is now available from the Economic and Social Data Service. The teaching dataset is a slimmed down version of the full WERS 2004 Cross-Section dataset, containing all of the workplaces and employees that participated in the survey, but only a subset of the data collected, in order to make the dataset more manageable. This dataset may prove useful to teachers and students of employment relations, human resource management, industrial sociology and labour economics, as well as those teaching or studying survey methods, statistics or econometrics. Further details.

WERS Time-Series Dataset (added 15/05/2008): The WERS Time-Series Dataset has been updated to include a 2004 time point and is now available from the Economic and Social Data Service. The dataset is formed from the interviews with the main management respondent in each of the five cross-section surveys (1980, 1984, 1990, 1998 and 2004) and contains consistently defined variables (where possible) for data items that are present in the 1998 or 2004 surveys and at least one other previous cross-section survey in the series. The time-series dataset also contains a link variable enabling observations to be linked to the EU KLEMS industry-level database, which provides measures of economic growth, productivity, employment creation, capital formation and technological change at the industry level for the UK from 1970 onwards. Further details.

Fourth user group meeting (added 18/03/08 ): The fourth meeting of the WERS 2004 User Group took place on Wednesday 27 th February 2008 at the University of Sheffield . The meeting was held jointly with the Work, Pensions and Labour Economics Study Group (WPEG). The programme for the meeting, along with slides from the papers presented, are now available to download. Further details.

Additional data now available (added 28/01/08): A series of variables at occupation level (unit group (four-digit) level, based on the 2000 Standard Occupational Classification (SOC 2000)) are now available from the Economic and Social Data Service. These variables can be matched to the WERS 2004 Survey of Employees. Further details.

Revision to 2004 panel data file (added 28/01/08): The 2004 panel data file has been revised to include previously absent employment data for 88 cases. These data are now available from the Economic and Social Data Service. Further details.

WERS and FAME (added 28/01/08): FAME (Financial Analysis Made Easy) is a database that provides financial and descriptive information on companies in the UK and Ireland. The ONS have now made available links from the Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR) to company reference numbers ( CRN) used within the 2004 FAME database at the Virtual Microdata Laboratory (VML). These CRNs are available for around 1,300 establishments in WERS 2004, providing users with the mechanism to link WERS to FAME data for these workplaces. Users wishing to analyze linked data from WERS and FAME would need to bring their own FAME dataset to the VML, where it could be linked to the WERS data, using the link variable provided. Further details.

Fourth user group (added 25/01/08): The fourth meeting of the WERS 2004 User Group will take place on Wednesday 27th February 2008. The meeting will be held jointly with the Work, Pensions and Labour Economics Study Group (WPEG) and will take place at the University of Sheffield, from 10.15am to 4.15pm. The programme for the meeting has now been finalised; a registration form is available for those who would like to attend. Attendance is free of charge and WPEG will refund reasonable domestic travelling expenses of UK-based academics and UK-based PhD students. The closing date for receipt of registrations is Wednesday 20th February 2008. Further details.

Third user group (added 12/11/07): The third meeting of the WERS 2004 User Group took place on Friday 26th October 2007 at the University of Warwick. The programme for the meeting, along with slides from the papers presented, are now available to download. Further details.

Travel to Work Area data now available (added 5/11/07): Following consultation with users, a small number of variables at Travel to Work Area (TTWA) level are now available from the Economic and Social Data Service. The data include unemployment and vacancy rates for matching on to the Cross-Section Management data from both WERS 2004 and WERS 98, as well as the 1998-2004 Panel data file. The postcodes of individual surveyed workplaces have also been deposited in the ONS Virtual Micro-data Laboratory. Further details

WERS now linked to ASHE (added 5/11/07): The Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) is an annual survey in which employers report on the working hours and earnings of around 165,000 randomly-selected employees. The survey provides detailed information about components of wages (basic wages, overtime pay, incentive payments, pensions), which is linkable over time. The ONS have identified around 6,000 ASHE records originating from workplaces that participated in the WERS 2004 Cross-Section Survey. WERS then provides a great deal of contextual information about the employee�s workplace that can be used to help understand variations in earnings within the ASHE data. The linked dataset is available for analysts within the ONS Virtual Microdata Laboratory. Further details.

WERS now linked to Business Structure Database (added 5/11/07): The ONS Business Structure Database (BSD) is a version of the Inter-Departmental Business Register that is prepared for research use. It provides information on an enterprise�s legal status and country of ownership, among other things. It also provides information on demographic events including birth, death, merger and takeover. Many of these data are available at establishment level. The ONS have successfully matched the WERS establishment records to the BSD, providing BSD information for 2,143 (93%) of the workplaces in the WERS 2004 Cross-Section. The linked dataset is available for analysts within the ONS Virtual Microdata Laboratory. Further details

Third User Group meeting (added 03/10/07): The third meeting of the WERS 2004 User Group will take place on Friday 26th October 2007. The meeting will take place at the University of Warwick, from 10am to 4pm. The programme for the meeting has now been finalised; a registration form is available for those who would like to attend. Further details.

Additional data from WERS98 now available (added 16/07/07): Previously restricted data from WERS98 are now available for registered users to download from the Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS). Access to these files was previously subject to the approval of the depositor. The additional data include region and industry identifiers, unemployment rates and vacancies by Government Office Region (GOR), Standard Statistical Region (SSR) and Travel To Work Area (TTWA), variables used in the sampling for the 1998 survey (stratifiers and sampling fractions), as well as verbatim responses to open-ended questions in the Cross-Section Management Interview, Survey of Employees and Worker Representative Interview.

New data from WERS 2004 now available (added 20/04/07): The original WERS data files held by the Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS) have been updated to incorporate additional data, along with a number of small revisions. The additional data include regional and industry identifiers for the Cross-Section Management data file and the Panel data file, as well as the data file relating to the Cross-Section Financial Performance Questionnaire. The revisions include a small amendment to the weight for the Cross-Section Survey of Employees, along with some small additional fixes. Further details.

WERS 2004 data now available via Nesstar (added 20/04/07): The data from WERS 2004 are now available via Nesstar, the on-line analysis tool provided by the Economic and Social Data Service. This allows access to the data via a simple web-based interface, providing a number of useful functions, such as the ability to compile cross-tabulations, view frequencies, produce graphs and conduct correlation and regression analyses.

Recent additions to the web-site (added 20/04/07): Users may be interested in the following updates to the WIAS web-site:

� The variable notes alerting users to specific issues or problems with particular variables have now been updated.

� The note detailing the small number of errata identified in the published primary analysis has also been revised.

� The FAQs section of the web-site has recently been updated and extended, including answers to questions on where to find out more about the additions and revisions to the data made in April 2007.

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About WERS 2004

The Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS) 2004 is a national survey of workplaces and their employees.

The survey is jointly sponsored by the Department of Trade and Industry, the Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service, the Economic and Social Research Council and the Policy Studies Institute. It follows in the acclaimed footsteps of earlier surveys conducted in 1980, 1984, 1990 and 1998.

The survey collects information from: managers with responsibility for employment relations or personnel matters; trade union or employee representatives; and employees themselves.

For more details about WERS 2004, either download the 8-page introduction below or visit our web pages about the survey.

Introduction to WERS 2004

Information and Advice Service

This service is funded by the ESRC and hosted at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR).

The service has been established in order to encourage use of the survey data from WERS 2004.

Support will be available both to new users and to those already familiar with the WERS series.

Activities will include:

Broadening access to the data
Maintaining the publicly-available data files
Providing information and advice to users
Convening user-group meetings
Compiling a database of WERS-based research

A similar service was provided in respect of the 1998 WERS. View web-site


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