A frequent, timely and more accurate picture of employment trends will be available next year. It follows yesterday's launch of a new quarterly household survey scheme, by the Central Statistics Office.

The quarterly figures, which will cost £3 million a year to compile, will replace the existing annual Labour Force Survey. This was carried out each April by the CSO at an annual cost of £1 million. The Census of Population, the largest CSO survey, costs about £16 million.

The 130 full-time enumerators, who were recruited earlier this year, along with ten field co-ordinators, will be armed with laptop computers, which are replacing 18-page-long questionnaires. This will allow for faster household visits and a direct-input system, enabling results to be processed within three months.

"The results will be of use to the Government, the EU and people interested in economic and social policy and development. It is critical that key decisions relate to up to date information," Mr Donal Murphy, director general of the CSO, said. Up to now, results from the annual labour survey, the main source for employment statistics and carried out every April with 430 enumerators, were not available until the following January. However, the CSO aims to have results from this year's annual survey available at the end of October.

The Quarterly National Household Survey, the second biggest survey after the Census, begins today when 3,000 households a week over the next three months will be asked to participate in a questionnaire seeking employment and habitation details. A target of 39,000 households being visited per quarter is envisaged, amounting to about 4 per cent of all households.

In addition, a social module will be introduced in each quarter, seeking to build up a national picture on issues such as health, education and crime. In the current quarter, respondents will be asked to rate their experience of the nursing profession. "Ultimately the topics are being assessed by the National Statistics Board but the Government will decide on their priorities," Mr Gerry O'Hanlon, a CSO director, said. He said the recruitment of the full-time specialist staff would enable them to develop a skilled team of interviewers. He added that the new system would give scope for researchers to access the data. The confidentiality of information is guaranteed under the 1993 Statistics Act.

The total number of households being surveyed is less than the 46,000 households surveyed in the annual Labour Force Survey, but the number of geographical blocks within which enumerators work has increased from less than 1,000 to 2,600, giving an overall more statistically valid picture.

To ascertain emerging trends, 80 per cent of respondents will be re-visited by the enumerators in consecutive quarters. The new system brings Ireland into line with an increasing number of EU countries which have switched to compiling similar statistics quarterly, in response to an increasingly complex labour market of full-time, part-time, temporary and casual workers.

The data collection is being carried out using a software programme called "Blaise", which was developed in Holland.