This section deals with the economic activity of all persons who are 15 years old and over.
Questions 20 and 21 apply only to those answering (30) in question 19.

19. Current activity status

6.2. Economically active population

The economically active population comprise all persons of either sex who furnish the supply of labour for the production of economic goods and services during the time reference period chosen for the Census, i.e. past calendar week and past twelve (12) months. It includes both persons in the civilian labour force and those serving in the armed forces.

The economically active population is also referred to as the labour force which consists of two groups:

Current activity status is determined on the basis of what the person was actually doing during a short reference period usually one (1) week. It is to be noted that Trinidad and Tobago collects current labour force data through its Continuous Sample Survey of Population. Current economic characteristics are simpler to investigate than "usual characteristics" (i.e. past twelve months) because the brief reference period avoids many of the complications that can occur when the longer period of twelve (12) months is used.

Equally important to bear in mind is that such data collected for the shorter period (the past week) can be more usefully correlated with other characteristics of the individual collected during the time reference.

Note: Past week means the calendar week (Sunday to Saturday) before enumeration