Why not use the real data?
Stuff’s story starts out
Half of all Kiwis like to change jobs regularly, with 51 per cent of people surveyed by online recruiter Seek starting their current role less than two years ago.
I don’t see why “like to change jobs regularly” is remotely the same as “have changed jobs recently”, and I’m sure people who were laid off in the recession or lost jobs to the ChCh quake would agree. But, more importantly, Stats New Zealand collects real data on changes of employment, so why not use that rather than a non-random sample from what Seek has in previous years described as “a broad online audience”.
In fact, Seek doesn’t do too badly in estimating: the true figure is 54%, with the difference being only about twice the margin of error for a random sample of the size of their previous years’ surveys.
As usual, I’m having to rely on previous years’ press releases for any methodology information, since Seek hasn’t posted this year’s one and Stuff isn’t giving any details.
Thomas Lumley (@tslumley) is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His research interests include semiparametric models, survey sampling, statistical computing, foundations of statistics, and whatever methodological problems his medical collaborators come up with. He also blogs at Biased and Inefficient See all posts by Thomas Lumley »