Description: Topics covered in the questionnaire are: work and unemployment, respondent characteristics, household characteristics, personal and household income variables.

The data set for dissemination contains 2885 cases and 262 variables. Abstract: Under the auspices of the Department and Training (DHET), the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) and a consortium of partners are undertaking the Labour Market Intelligence Partnership Research Project (LMIP) in order to address the need for an improved system of labour market analysis and planning in South Africa. At the centre of skills planning is need for quality and reliable data on the South African labour market information. Theme 1 of LMIP entitled "Establishing a foundation for labour market information systems in South Africa" acknowledges the need to improve the quality as well as quantity of the current labour market information for effective skills planning. It is against this background that the current project - Survey of attitudes towards employment and unemployment related issues will be conducted to:

Determine attitudes of South Africans towards the labour market.

Develop a systemic and methodology sound infrastructure for studying changing work attitudes, values and behaviour patterns of agents in and out the labour market.

The broad aim of this study is to determine attitudes of South Africans towards the labour market. This entails:

Investigating the nature and distribution of work orientations and work values of South Africans;

Exploring the public's attitudes towards the state of unemployment and barriers;

To explore the public's assessment of the relevance of post school education and some specific skills in the workplace;

To get in depth insights about the perceived effective job search strategies;

To investigate the satisfaction levels of those in employment, and subjective evaluation of various aspects of their work.

Data for the study will be collected through the South African Social Attitudes Survey. The South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS) is the Human Science's survey which has been collecting data on South Africa attitudes, beliefs and behaviour patterns annually since 2003. The Education and Skills Development Research Programme included a module into the SASAS study which looked at five 1) Work values and ethics, 2) perceived barriers to employment, 3) perceived skills and competencies required in the labour market, 4) job search strategies, and 5) subjective evaluation of different aspects of work.

Face-to-face interview

National Population: Adults (aged 16 and older)

SASAS has been designed to yield a representative sample of 3500 adult South African citizens aged 16 and older (with no upper age limit), in households geographically spread across the country's nine provinces. The sampling frame used for the survey was based on the 2011 census and a set of small area layers (SALs). Estimates of the population numbers for various categories of the census variables were obtained per SAL. In this sampling frame special institutions (such as hospitals, military camps, old age homes, schools and university hostels), recreational areas, industrial areas and vacant SALs were excluded prior to the drawing of the sample.

Small area layers (SALs) were used as primary sampling units and the estimated number of dwelling units (taken as visiting points) in the SALs as secondary sampling units. In the first sampling stage the primary sampling units (SALs) were drawn with probability proportional to size, using the estimated number of dwelling units in an SAL as measure of size. The dwelling units as secondary sampling units were defined as "separate (non-vacant) residential stands, addresses, structures, flats, homesteads, etc." In the second sampling stage a predetermined number of individual dwelling units (or visiting points) were drawn with equal probability in each of the drawn dwelling units. Finally, in the third sampling stage a person was drawn with equal probability from all 16 year and older persons in the drawn dwelling units.

Three explicit stratification variables were used, namely province, geographic type and majority population group. As stated earlier, within each stratum, the allocated number of primary sampling units (which could differ between different strata) was drawn using proportional to size probability sampling with the estimated number of dwelling units in the primary sampling units as measure of size. In each of these drawn primary sampling units, seven dwelling units were drawn. This resulted in a sample of 3500 individuals.

A list of the 500 drawn SALs were given to geographic information specialists (GIS) and maps were then created for each of the 500 areas, indicating certain navigational beacons such as schools, roads churches etc.

Selection of individuals: For each of the SASAS samples interviewers visited each visiting point drawn in the SALs (PSU) and listed all eligible persons for inclusion in the sample, that is all persons currently aged 16 years or older and resident at the selected visiting point. The interviewer then selected one respondent using a random selection procedure based on a Kish grid.