Page 435 - Invited Paper Session (IPS) - Volume 2

IPS320 Michael Frosch
1. Introduction
The Resolution concerning statistics on work relationships adopted at the
20 International Conference of Labour Statisticians in 2018 (20 ICLS
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Resolution I) (ILO, 2018a), replaced the previous standards defined in the
International Classification of Status in Employment (ICSE-93) (ILO, 1993). The
20 ICLS resolution I) includes a more detailed set of status in employment
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categories defined in the International Classification of Status in Employment
(ICSE-18) as compared with the previous standards. One of the major criticisms
against the previous standards was that ICSE-93 did not provide sufficient
information to adequately monitor the changes in employment arrangements
taking place in many countries. The increase in non-standard forms of
employment such as zero-hour contracts, short term contracts and
“dependent self-employed” was not clearly addressed in ICSE-93 and
challenged the boundary between self-employment and paid employment.
The more detailed categories in ICSE-18 allow the provision of more
comprehensive and internationally comparable statistics on the changing
nature of employment relationships including the growth of non-standard
forms of employment. It also provides a clearer boundary between
independent workers and dependent workers as well as between workers in
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employment for profit and workers in employment for pay. The 20 ICLS
resolution I also includes the Classification of status at Work (ICSaW-18) which
is an extension of the classification of status in employment that covers all
forms of work, paid as well as unpaid. The 20th ICLS resolution I is hence
aligned to the 19th ICLS Resolution I concerning statistics of work,
employment and labour underutilization, adopted in 2013 (ILO, 2013).
The classification is complemented by 23 cross-cutting variables that
provide information for characteristics that cut across several status
categories. Many of these are already regularly covered in Labour Force
Surveys (LFS) but are not in general covered by international standards. The
inclusion and definitions of these variables will thus promote greater
harmonisation and international comparability. The resolution also contains a
set of indicators that allow the assessment and monitoring of labour market
performance, the stability of employment relationships, exposure of the
employed population to economic risk and participation in non-standard
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employment arrangements. The 20 ICLS resolution I is a comprehensive set
of standards where some of its aspects are familiar and already part of most
countries LFS´s while others are new and will constitute a challenge to
measure. The status in employment is still the core of the new standards and
many countries are using the LFS as the main survey instrument for collecting
status in employment categories. The focus in this paper is therefore on the
classification principles and structure of ICSE-18 and how statistics according
to the ICSE-18 can be collected in a typical LFS. The paper will cover the

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