Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union

G2: Structural business statistics and global value chains

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The “Business services statistics” (BS) collection contains harmonised statistics on business services. BS is a driver of the knowledge-based economy and their labour-intensive nature has attracted interest in their potential as providers of new jobs in the future. Contributing to the recent increase in the demand for business services, the growing trend in outsourcing has seen many enterprises use service providers for non-core professional activities. Technological progress and the Internet are also important factors which have provided new production possibilities and new modes of supply.

Due to its growing importance, BS data are collected since 2000 reference year. The data were collected under Gentlemen agreement until 2007 reference year and from 2008 onwards it become part of the regular mandatory annual data collection of SBS.

The BS’s data requirements before 2008 reference year included more variables, but data is available only for a small number of countries.

The following variables are available until 2007 reference year:

• Number of enterprises
• Turnover or gross premiums written
• Value added at factor cost
• Personnel costs
• Number of persons employed
• Number of employees
• Number of part-time employees

The “Turnover or gross premiums written” variable is broken down by product and residence of client.

In addition, there is information on the turnover shares of product and client specialised enterprises.

The statistics on “Turnover by product” permits analyses on each product's relative importance in the turnover, consistency of product level statistics and product specialisation. On the other hand, information on “Turnover by client” enables analyses on type and location of client and client specialisation. The economic variables make it possible to extend the analysis to productivity and personnel cost issues.

From 2008 onwards, the BS’s data requirements are only for variable “Turnover” broken down by products and by type of residence of client.

The majority of the data is collected annually by National Statistical Institutes (NSIs) by means of statistical surveys, business registers or from various administrative sources.

Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community (NACE) :

NACE Rev.1 was used until 2001, NACE Rev. 1.1 since 2002, and NACE Rev 2 is used from 2008 onwards).  

The product breakdown is based on the Classification of Products by Activity (CPA) as stated in the Regulation establishing CPA 2008.

Country codes and names are based on the inter-institutional style guide.

Until 2001, BS data covered NACE Rev.1 classes 72.10-72.60, 74.12, 74.13, 74.14, 74.20 and 74.40.

From the 2003 reference year, data collection covered NACE Rev.1.1 classes 74.11, 74.30, 74.50 and 80.42.

Starting from 2008 reference year data collection covers  NACE Rev 2 codes: J62, N78, J582,J631, M731, M691, M692, M702, M712, M732, M7111, M7112.

The definitions of the requested characteristics are available in the Annex to Commission Regulation (EC) No 2700/98 and also in the Commission Regulation No 250/2009 concerning the definitions of characteristics for structural business statistics.

The data included in the BS collection are flow data and they are expressed in value (million Euros) or units.

The product specialisation is defined as a share of the most important product in the total turnover of an enterprise in the following way:
a) the most important product is consistent with the main activity of the enterprise and
b) the most important product comprises at least 75% of its total net turnover.

The client specialisation is defined as a share of the three biggest clients in total turnover:

Non-specialised: [0% - 50%)
Medium specialised: [50% - 75%)
Highly specialised: [75% - 100%]

The statistics refer to enterprises.

The statistical population consists of all enterprises classified in the business services i.e. enterprises in the NACE codes listed above (see 3.3 for the classes covered).

A summary list of available data for each country based on the reference year of BS statistics is given below:

From 2008 onwards, BS data are available for all Member States, with the exception of France and Estonia that granted derogation on providing data until 2011 reference year.

Data are collected annually from 2000 to 2005 for few countries and from 2008 onwards for almost all Member States and Norway.

Not relevant for BS collection.

• Monetary data are expressed in millions of €. See annex at the bottom of the page for annual average exchange rates vis-à-vis the euro
• Per head values are expressed in thousands of € per head
• Per hours values are expressed in € per hour
• Ratios of monetary variables are expressed in percentages

Employment variables are expressed in units for individual countries, but in hundreds for European aggregates for the reference years 2005-2013. From the reference year 2014 onwards Employment variables for European aggregates are expressed in units.

Data refers to calendar years.

BD data was collected under Gentlemen agreement within the context of the development of Structural Business Statistics before 2007. The data is covered by the rules of confidential data in force in the EU.

 The European Parliament and Council Regulation No 295/2008 is the legal basis for the data collection from 2008 onwards.

 The definitions of the characteristics for which statistics on business services are collected are included in the Commission Regulation N° 250/2009.

 The requirements for turnover breakdowns by product and residence of client are defined in the Commission Regulation No 251/2009 .

Eurostat makes available all non-confidential data on its dissemination website.

Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics (recital 24 and Article 20(4)) of 11 March 2009 (OJ L 87, p. 164), stipulates the need to establish common principles and guidelines ensuring the confidentiality of data used for the production of European statistics and the access to those confidential data with due account for technical developments and the requirements of users in a democratic society.

Confidentiality - if data are of truly confidential nature according to the above mentioned regulation, they have to be flagged confidential, and they will not be published by Eurostat.

BS data are published two years after the end of the reference year (T+24).

not available

In line with the Community legal framework and the European Statistics Code of Practice Eurostat disseminates European statistics on Eurostat's website (see item 10 - 'Accessibility and clarity') respecting professional independence and in an objective, professional and transparent manner in which all users are treated equitably. The detailed arrangements are governed by the Eurostat protocol on impartial access to Eurostat data for users.

Annual

News releases on-line

EU-27 business services: thriving in the wake of outsourcing and liberalisation - Statistics in focus 76/2007

Eurostat regional yearbook 2007 - Chapter 8: Structural business statistics; focus on business services

Exports of business services - Statistics in focus 74/2007

Main features of EU-27 Business services - Statistics in focus 101/2008

Provision and export of computer services in Europe - Statistics in focus 15/2006

Statistics Explained article: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Business_services_statistics_-_NACE_Rev._1.1

Please consult free data on-line.

Not available

Identification of commentary on the occasion of statistical releases:

Release of new data is usually not accompanied by a press release

Hardcopy > Other: Detailed Tables were released in January 2005.
Internet address: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat

A summary of the national methodologies used for Business Services Statistics for the 2001 data collection is available in the "Evaluation of the development project" (see Annex at the bottom of the page).

 The European Parliament and Council Regulation No 295/2008 with the two implementing Commission Regulations No 250/2009 and 251/2009 outlines the methodology to be used for the production of the data by the NSIs.

 A methodological manual is also available (see Annex at the bottom of the page).

Methodological difficulties and changes for individual countries are signalled in the "Evaluation of the development project" from the annex.  Some more general information can be found in a summary report: Report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on the implementation of the SBS Regulation.

As from the reference year 2008 Member States have been providing Eurostat with regular (annual) quality reports covering most of the categories of the ESS Standard for Quality Reports. Eurostat prepares a summary quality reports which is discussed in a yearly meeting with Member States.

According to the information available from the quality reports, the data providers have applied the SBS - EU Regulations in force. More information is available in the Report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on the implementation of the SBS Regulation.  

The main users of SBS data, the Commission policy DGs, are consulted in order to identify unfulfilled user needs.

Eurostat has not yet undertaken a user satisfaction survey.

Data before 2008 reference year was collected on a voluntary basis, therefore it is only available for a few Member States.

From the reference year 2008 and onwards almost all required data is provided by the Member States.

The SBS Regulation is an output-oriented Regulation, leaving data providers the choice of data sources. In most countries a combination of survey and administrative data is used. It is very hard to assess the accuracy of the administrative data. No quantitative indicator is available.

This information is not available.

This information is not available.

Data are collected within 18 months after the end of the reference period.

Final data ought to be sent to Eurostat 18 months after the end of the reference period (T+18). Punctuality has improved over time.

Before 2008, the country’s questionnaire was based on the final harmonised versions of the questionnaires developed by Eurostat in co-operation with participating Member States. Some countries adapted the EU questionnaires slightly and added some extra questions. However, these changes did not have any significant effect on the comparability of statistics. For more information on the deviations from the European questionnaire please see the "Evaluation of the development project" (see annex at the bottom of the page).

The BS data provided after 2008 are comparable over time. 

Turnover's totals must be internally consistent with the SBS regular survey data.

Internal coherence checks have been performed on the data before dissemination.

This information is not available.

Most of the data provided is definitive data, but revisions are possible.

Revised data are loaded after checking. There is no specific revision calendar.

The data in the BS collection are in general definitive. A limited number of revisions are possible. Revisions are generally a result of changes in the basic data used for the compilation of the statistics.

Data collection is carried out by Member States. Data sources used in different Member States vary from administrative sources to sample surveys.

For the data collection before 2008 reference year, turnover breakdowns are without exceptions from sample surveys as this type of data is not available from administrative sources.

These sample surveys are exhaustive for enterprises with more than 50 employees (for smaller countries with 20 or even 10 employees) or with turnover above certain threshold. Smaller enterprises are sampled; business registers are used as sampling frames. Information for other SBS variables may come from administrative sources, sample surveys or mixture of them depending on Member State.

From the 2008 reference year, BS data are collected by mean of survey or sample survey combined with administrative sources. In few countries the survey is exhaustive and for the others a sample survey is organised.  When the combination of survey and administrative sources was used by the countries to collect BS data, Business register and Tax Administrations were the main sources of information.

Annual

The BS data was collected on a voluntary basis based on the Gentleman agreement until 2007 reference year and NSIs had to check and send the data to Eurostat in the agreed techical format.

From 2008 onwards, the NSIs have to provide good quality of BS data within the deadline and in the requested technical format as stated in the Commission Regulation No 295/2008 and its implementing regulations (Commission Regulation No 250/2009 and No 251/2009).

 A number of logical checks are performed and the consistency between the turnover values provided for BS and SBS are checked by Eurostat (see the Validation checks in the Annex). 

For the moment no European aggregates were calculated, as information for few Member States is not available.

Data are in value. Countries provide the value data in national currency which is converted into Euro/ECU on the basis of Euro/ECU exchange rates - Annual data (see the "Exchange rates" in the Annex)

Not relevant for BS collection

Special warnings
Before 2008 reference year, the collection of BS includes data from the development project on business services and development work continues as long as the data collection is part of the regular SBS data collection. Thus data from one year to another is not always fully comparable and the geographical coverage varies from one year to another.