WASHINGTON—The Department of Labor next year will conduct a survey on how employees are using the Family and Medical Leave Act, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis announced Tuesday.

The survey, to be done by the department’s Wage and Hour Division, is intended to “provide insight into how families” use FMLA leave, as well as information on regulatory changes, among other things, the DOL said.

The Department of Labor has done several surveys on the FMLA since 1993, when the FMLA legislation was approved—the Clinton administration’s first major domestic initiative to pass Congress.

The most recent survey, released in 2007, estimated that in 2005 between 8% and 17.1% of employees took FMLA leave that year.

The FMLA gives employees the right to take up to 12 weeks of job-protected unpaid leave a year because of certain family situations, such as the birth or adoption of a child, to take care of a sick child, or to care for their own medical problems.