Statistics Finland

Economic statistics

PO Box 3B, FI-00022 Statistics Finland

The production (volume) index of construction is aimed to measure the volume of output of construction. It is derived from the turnover index of construction, which describes monthly development in the turnover of construction companies. The examined variable is domestic turnover, formed of domestic sales subject to value added tax. The data used for calculating the variable are exclusive of value added tax.

NACE Rev. 2.

Construction covers section F of NACE Rev. 2.

Eurostat splits construction into buildings and civil engineering based on CC classification (Classification of Types of Construction). Since only NACE classification is used, are the indices sent to Eurostat as follows:
- division 41 (NACE Rev. 2) index is sent as CC1 buildings and
- division 42 (NACE Rev. 2) index is sent as CC2 civil engineering works.

From February 2015 data, whole indices are sent to Eurostat as follows:
- weighted mean of divisions 41 (NACE Rev. 2, weight: 0.403) and 43 (NACE Rev. 2, weight: 0.597) indices is sent as CC1 buildings and
- division 42 (NACE Rev. 2) index is sent as CC2 civil engineering works.

Size classes covered:
Administrative source: monthly data for enterprises whose annual turnover is more than EUR 100,000, quarterly data for enterprises whose annual turnover is EUR 30,001 - 100,000 and yearly data for enterprises whose annual turnover is less than EUR 30,000. Quarterly and yearly data is methodologically disaggregated into monthly data. Statistical survey covers large enterprises.

The production index of construction is aimed to measure the volume of output of construction. It is approximated by deflated turnover.

The sales inquiry concerning construction inquires about monthly level sales data on main contract type of activity and sub-contracting in Finland and own use of construction services.

Reference period: flow during the calendar month

Variables on administrative declarations: Domestic sales by tax rate, Sales of goods to other EU Member States, Sales of services to other EU Member States, Sales of construction services, Sales taxable at zero VAT rate.

Reference period: flow during the calendar month, quarter or year.

Administrative source: legal unit. Statistical survey: legal unit, kind-of-activity unit for the major multi-industrial enterprises.

Target population is construction enterprises and entrepreneurs. In practice the survey population is enterprises and entrepreneurs which submit self-assessed tax returns to the Finnish Tax Administration and fall into NACE section F. This consists of around 54 525 enterprises. Business register is used for NACE information.

The frame is updated monthly and demographic changes, such as and start-ups and the most important mergers and split offs, are included instantly. Closures are included as soon as they are noticed, at the latest in three months delay.

Geographical area covered: the whole country including the Autonomous Region Of Åland.

Data is available from 1995.

Base (reference) year: 2015.

Indices.

Month.

The production of the indices is based on the Statistics Act (280/2004) and guided by Regulation (EU) (N:o 2019/2152) of the European Parliament and of the Council on European business statistics and Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) (N:o 2020/1197) on European business statistics. The Regulation obliges Member States to produce index series on turnover data for certain industries.

The Statistics Act (280/04) is the general act for the National Statistical Service (NSS). It contains the principles for the data collection, processing, and dissemination of official statistics. The act defines the roles of statistical authorities (Statistics Finland, Customs, National Institute for  Health and Welfare, and Tike, Information Centre of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry) and other authorities producing statistics. The Statistics Finland Act (48/1992) states that Statistics Finland (SF) shall provide for the general development of official statistics in collaboration with other central government authorities.
The aim of the NSS is to produce official statistics, Official Statistics of Finland (OSF). European law (especially the Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on European statistics (EC) No 223/2009) applies to a large portion of OSF.

The Statistics Act requires that the primarily exploited sources for statistical purposes shall be the data accumulated in the administration of general government and the data produced as a consequence of the normal activities of employers, self-employed persons, corporations, and foundations. SF has the right to have access to these data under the Statistics Act. In addition, all public and private entities in Finland are obliged to provide SF with data on their finances, products and staff as necessary for the production of statistics. The right of SF to collect data by virtue of the obligation does not extend, however, to data that are kept confidential for reasons of international relationships, public safety, the interest of national defence, or the safety of the state. Before any data collection based on the obligation, the statistical authority must consult the respondents or their representatives about the contents, timing, collection methods, duration of storing of the data as well as about costs. Besides those data obtained directly from administrative sources data from natural persons are always collected on voluntary basis by using interviewing or mail and web surveys. In addition, the interviewees must be informed in advance in a written form.
The Statistics Act stipulates that a data provider who willfully fails to provide the obligatory data or willfully provides false data shall be sentenced to a fine. Nevertheless, SF is allowed to refrain from bringing charges if the violation is regarded as minor, but in practice charges have not been filed.

According to the Statistics Act, data obtained by four statistical authorities may be released to other parties either if permitted by legal provisions explicitly concerning the NSS, or upon express consent of the subject of the data. As far as statistical authorities are concerned they are allowed to transmit confidential data with identifiers to each other if it is deemed necessary for the production of statistics. The same applies to the European Statistical System authorities (ESS Authorities). Co-ordination among data-producing agencies is normal practice at both specialist and top level.

Several legal acts guarantee that individual data should be kept confidential.
According to the Act on the Openness of Government Activities (621/1999) data collected for statistical purposes are confidential. The rule is not applied to the publicity of data describing the activities of central and local government authorities and production of public services or to certain data in the Register of Enterprises and Establishments.
Under the Statistics Act, statistics shall be compiled so that the respondents whom they concern are not directly or indirectly identifiable. Violation of the secrecy obligation is punishable under the Penal Code. At the EU level, similar assurances are included in Council Regulation (EC) No 223/2009.
Details regarding the protection of information on private individuals are laid down in the Finnish Personal Data Act (523/1999).
The Statistics Act obliges statistics-producing authorities to inform respondents in writing or in other appropriate manner about the intended use of the data, the procedures to be used in producing the statistics, the principles governing whether the provision of data is obligatory or voluntary, the rights of the respondents, the arrangements for protecting the data, and the duration the data will be stored.
The Statistics Act allows a statistical authority to grant access to confidential data for use in scientific research or statistical surveys if statistical units cannot be identified directly from them. The right to use data may be given in compliance with a well-defined process including a written application.
SF has implemented procedures to prevent disclosure of any individual data provider. It has published guidelines on how to apply the Statistics Act and the Personal Data Act, as well as guidelines on the protection of tabulated data on enterprises and individual persons. A section on data protection is included in the SF publication Quality Guidelines for Official Statistics. Micro data concerning individual persons released for scientific research are first edited to remove variables that would make it possible to directly identify individual persons such as name, address or personal identification number. Similar procedures are used with respect to sensitive information about units other than individual persons.

The data is confidential as it is flagged when sent to Eurostat (preliminary figures which are not published nationally).

The data is no longer flagged from 01/2019 on, since the national publication is changed to the same date as Eurostat transmission, allowing a shorter delay in national publication.  

A release schedule for the coming year, specifying precise dates of release, is published in the Release Calendar in December by Statistics Finland.

The release dates are available on the Internet (https://www.stat.fi/en/future-releases).

The results are released simultaneously to all interested parties (with the exception of preliminary figures sent to Eurostat) on predefined days on the home page of the Index of turnover of construction https://www.stat.fi/en/statistics/rlv.
There is no internal governmental access to data before their release to the public. No ministerial commentary is attached to released data.

Series are transmitted to Eurostat 45 days after the end of the reference period. Series were transmitted to Eurostat a month earlier they were published in Finland concerning the data 2018. From the data 01/2019 on, delay of 45 days after reference period has been adopted both in national publication and Eurostat transmissions.

The transmission is done via EDAMIS web portal by using SDMX coding system

Monthly.

A monthly publication is made available to the media and the public free of charge. The indices are published monthly on the Internet (http://tilastokeskus.fi/til/rlv/).

A monthly publication is made available to the media and the public free of charge. The indices are published monthly on the Internet (https://www.stat.fi/en/statistics/rlv).

The quality description of the statistics, as well as concepts and definitions, are available on the homepage of the Index of turnover of construction.

Indices and revisions are published in the StatFin-databank of Statistics Finland (http://tilastokeskus.fi/tup/statfin/index_en.html). Information published:

• Original index series
• Working day adjusted index series
• Seasonally adjusted index series
• Trend series
• Annual change of the original index series, %
• Cumulative annual change of the original index series, %
• Three month moving annual change of the original index series, %
• Annual change of the working day adjusted index series, %
• Cumulative annual change of the working day adjusted index series, %
• Three month moving annual change of the working day adjusted index series, %
• Change of the seasonally adjusted index series from the previous month, %

Some of the above mentioned data is also published as quarterly, semiannual and annual aggregates. Revisions are published from the original, working day adjusted and seasonal adjusted index series. A revision is presented as the difference between percentage point changes found in the first and the latest release.

Microdata is not publicly available.

Statistics Finland's researcher services offer unit-level data, i.e. micro data, for scientific studies and statistical surveys. The conditions and rules with respect to data access can be found on the home page http://stat.fi/tup/mikroaineistot/index_en.html.

Data is sent monthly to Eurostat.

Eurostat splits construction into buildings and civil engineering based on CC classification (Classification of Types of Construction). Since only NACE classification is used, are the indices sent to Eurostat as follows:
- division 41 (NACE Rev. 2) index is sent as CC1 buildings and
- division 42 (NACE Rev. 2) index is sent as CC2 civil engineering works.

From February 2015 data, whole indices are sent to Eurostat as follows:
- weighted mean of divisions 41 (NACE Rev. 2, weight: 0.403) and 43 (NACE Rev. 2, weight: 0.597) indices is sent as CC1 buildings and
- division 42 (NACE Rev. 2) index is sent as CC2 civil engineering works.

Dissemination on request
Tailored tables and data files are provided for a fee.

The documentation on methodology and sources used in preparing statistics is available on the Internet in Finnish (https://www.stat.fi/en/statistics/documentation/rlv).

Advance notice of major changes in methodology, source data, and statistical techniques.
Advance notice is given to the public on the statistics website (https://www.stat.fi/en/statistics/rlv) when major changes are introduced in methodology, sources, and statistical techniques. Information on revisions in statistics. In the case of major changes, briefings for the main users and press will be organised.

The documentation on quality management is available on the Internet in Finnish (https://www.stat.fi/en/statistics/documentation/rlv).

Monthly follow-up of revisions is available for public within every release and in the StatFin-databank of turnover of construction industries.

Quality policy
The main lines of quality management at Statistics Finland are defined in the handbook Quality Guidelines for Official Statistics. There is also a group for the management of quality and processes at SF. The group reports to the DG. Statistical Methods unit takes care of methodology for quality assurance e.g. in sampling and editing-imputation process.
SF develops its activities according to the Total Quality Management principles. It has been influenced by, among other things, the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) excellence model, the United Nations’ Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics and Handbook of Statistical Organization, as well as the European Statistics Code of Practice. The quality criteria of OSF are harmonised with the respective criteria of the European Statistical System.

Impartiality of statistics
Section 11 of the Finnish Statistics Act contains the requirement that statistics should be as reliable as possible, give a truthful picture, and make use, if possible, of uniform concepts, definitions, and classifications, as well as be timely. Similar provisions can be found in EU legislation. The Statistics Act, the Statistics Finland Act, and the Council of State Decree on Statistics Finland (1063/2002) and several other legal provisions support SF’s professional independence:
• Section 3 of the Statistics Finland Act decrees that the internal organisation of SF is defined in internal Rules of Procedure which are decided by SF’s Director General (DG);
• Section 1 of the Council of State Decree on SF gives the DG the right to manage the activities and finances of SF;
• Section 5 of the Council of State Decree lays down that the DG shall be appointed by the Council of State for a fixed term. The nomination is made after open competition. The Decree also gives the DG the right to appoint the staff of SF, including directors of the departments as well as other staff members unless the decision-power has been delegated in the Rules of Procedure to some other official of SF;
• Section 10 of the Statistics Act provides that data processing shall take place in accordance with good statistical practice and the international recommendations and procedures generally applied in the field of statistics.

Selection of sources, methodology, and modes of dissemination
The selection of sources, methodology and modes of dissemination of SF statistics are decided by SF alone. According to the Statistics Act, the choice of data sources, statistical techniques, and methods of dissemination should be based on statistical considerations (Sections 3, 10, 11, and 12). There are also responsibilities regarding cost-efficiency and the response burden of data collections (Section 4).

Guidelines for staff behavior
On the basis of international recommendations SF has confirmed its own Guidelines on Professional Ethics. All employees are given a copy of this handbook.
An internal ethical board meets regularly and reports on its decisions and discussions on the intranet open to all staff of SF.

The overall quality of the production index of construction is good, except for the revision of the preliminary results.

Quality work in Statistics Finland

The top management of Statistics Finland has made several self-assessments in line with the EFQM model. There have also been external audits by  e.g. the EU and IMF experts. Processes are in place to monitor the quality of the statistical process and the processes of individual statistics. Quality considerations are an integral part of the planning and evaluation of the statistical programme.
The process owner of statistical production and it’s supporting group monitor the quality and steer the standardisation of work processes.
Statistics Finland has an internal quality audit system. The main objectives are to evaluate the ways of working, methods and techniques. An audit is carried out by an audit team of experts who are external in the sense that they do not have any direct connection with the production process in question.
About 8 audits are carried out yearly.

The information is used for the follow-up and analysis of the development of the business statistics in Eurostat, in the European Central Bank, in some international organizations and Finland's public administration and area developing. The economic life and the research institutions use information to the evaluation of the market's and the competitors' development.

Co-operation between SF and important users with regard to the relevance of statistics and the users’ needs consists of an extensive feedback system and co-operative working groups with the main users, such as users of national accounts. There are regular meetings of SF directors and experts with the users, even at the senior management level. Users are usually also invited to participate in discussions concerning the establishment of new statistics or revisions of existing ones.
In addition, there are specific feedback systems for receiving the users’ opinions at SF. These systems consist of an anonymous feedback channel on the web, media monitoring, surveys among different user groups for the evaluation SF’s performance, user surveys, and a system for collecting and disseminating information that is strategically important for SF. Specific statistical products conduct their own user surveys and keep in regular contact with their main interest groups.

All the required series are produced although the classification system used for breakdown of total construction does not follow the STS regulations (NACE Rev.2 instead of Classification of Types of Construction (CC)).

Accuracy is good, due to total data in use. Data updates over one year backwards. However the most notable changes affect the five most recent months.

The average revision of the first estimate in total turnover of construction in time period 1-12/2022 was 1.6 percentage points (measured 6/2022). The most significant sources of error are coverage errors, data processing errors and classification changes. The first error source mentioned is the most significant one and the two latter are less significant.

The data used in the first estimates is based on a cut-off sample and thus it is assumed that the units in the sample develop in a similar way with the rest of the population. However in different economic fluctuations it may be that the assumption does not apply and in that case the first estimates may be biased.

The population used for calculating the production of construction is formed from VAT-data. The first time (lag of around 30 & 45 days) VAT data is received the coverage is approximately 40 per cent and the second time (lag of around 75 days) approximately 99 per cent in terms of business turnover.

The first estimate calculated is based on Statistics Finland's sales inquiry which includes about 200 most important companies in the construction sector. The sales inquiry is a cut-off sample and is kept up to date by removing closures and companies whose activity is greatly reduced. The sample is also updated with new and expanding businesses. The sample size has been made to as minimum as possible still to achieve an adequate coverage in terms of turnover in different industries. The accuracy of the first estimate may be reduced in some industry levels because the development of the large enterprises in the sample may differ from the rest of the population covered by the VAT data. However due to the sampling method being as a cut-off and the sample being quite fixed within years the sampling error is not relevant to be calculated.

The average absolute revision between first publication, based on cut-off sample, and the second publication, with the VAT data included, in the calendar adjusted production (volume) index of construction in time period 1-12/2022 was 0.9 percentage points.

The sample coverage measured by the number of companies is approximately 0.3 %. But when measured by turnover the sample covers around 34 % of the total turnover of construction.

The first estimates are calculated from a sample. The size-weighted unit response rate in time period 1-12/2022 was 96.7%. The response rate has been calculated from turnover information by comparing the weighted sum of turnover from companies that have responded to the query to the weighted sum of turnover from the companies belonging to the sample for each month. There is no item non-response. From the beginning of January 2019 time series modelling has been used for helping calculations of the indices at a lag of around 45 days. Time series modelling is can also be used for some industries at a lag of 75 days in calculations of data.

Due to accumulation of the VAT data the indices are revised for over a year. The data will be revised the most in the five latest months after the first publication. The first time (lag of around 30 & 45 days) VAT data is received the coverage is approximately 40 per cent and the second time (lag of around 75 days) approximately 99 per cent in terms of business turnover. The turnover used from VAT data does not fully correlate the turnover with the Accounting Act since it may contain for example fixed asset sales, other income and extraordinary items. The data may also contain for example optical reading errors or human errors in filling the forms. Because of the coverage of the data used the statistical method is considered nearly unbiased.

The latest three months in the time series are supplemented by the imputation of the missing data. The imputation is conducted on a legal unit level. The imputation may not perform well for the legal units with abnormal observations or when there is significant changes in business cycle. Due to the uncertainty of the used imputation method there might be occasional revision in the series in various industry levels.

The monthly publication of indices at NACE 2-digit level are publiced nationally and disseminated to Eurostat with a delay of 45 days.

Reporting units should file their declarations to the tax authorities within 1 month and 12 days from the end of the reference month. Statistics Finland receives the data approximately two months after the end of the reference month. The due date for the Sales inquiry of Statistics Finland is 15 days after the reference month.

National publication always on time. 100 percent of the deliveries to Eurostat on time (2022).

European definitions are used and therefore the results are internationally comparable. The whole national territory is covered.

Indices are comparable over time.

Comparisons are usually made regularly to relevant other sources, such as the annual data of Business register and SBS, but conserning year 2018 this has been done slightly.

CC1 and CC2 are not coherent with the total F, since total also includes division 43 (Nace Rev. 2).
From February 2015 data, CC1 and CC2 are coherent with F, since division 43 (Nace Rev. 2) is included in CC1. (See 10.5 for more details.)

Total costs of survey data productions: 191 person-hours *

Total burden on respondents: 797 person-hours **

*on year 2022

**on year 2019

Indices are revised according to changes in the data and errors are corrected. Only the most recent data is published and vintage data is not available in database. The same revision policy is applied nationally and in transmissions to Eurostat. More detailed explanation of revisions can be found here http://tilastokeskus.fi/org/periaatteet/revisiokaytannot_en.html.

All revisions caused by accumulation of the data and corrections in the data used are applied immediately. Large revisions due to methodological changes are implemented at the same time with the change of the base year every five years. All the major changes in the statistical production are informed on the statistics website (https://www.stat.fi/en/statistics/rlv).

Revisions are analysed every month during the normal production process through revisionreports.

Classification changes introduce regular revisions and are taken into account once a year on one year delay when the Business register is final for the described year.

The major revisions are informed on the statistics website

Changes in these statistics.

Because the Tax Administration's self-assessed tax return data supplements also after the due date, the data is repeatedly updated for over a year.

Revised figures are published monthly according to the changes in data, but not announced as such. Methodological changes, errors in the newest release and the outstandingly significant revisions are announced at the time of change. Errors are corrected immediately. An annual overhaul of seasonal adjustment models is carried out.

Monthly follow-up of revisions is available for public within every release and in the StatFin-databank of turnover of construction industries.

MR (mean revision) from original series was -0.96 (time period 1/2020-12/2022) and from working day adjusted series was (time period 1/2019-12/2021) -0.98.

MAR (mean absolut revision) from original series was 1.81 (time period 1/2020-12/2022) and 1.78 from working day adjustes deries (time period 1/2020-12/2022)

Administrative source (VAT data, which is basically a census) complemented by a statistical survey of the largest enterprises in each industry (cut-off sample). The survey is updated yearly.

Imputation is used for part of the missing data. The unit non response is corrected with one of the five simple rules, and imputed values are included into calculations only when the single imputation can be considered as reliable.

The most recent month's VAT data was introduced in April 2020 in indices published with a one and a half months delay. In the first sampling, the coverage of the turnover data is on average of 40 per cent, measured by the turnover of the companies. In the second sampling, the data is almost completely accumulated.

Monthly, collected data refer to full reference month.

A web questionnaire is used to collect the survey data. E-mail reminders are sent twice and thereafter the remaining non respondents are contacted by phone.

Validation level 0:
VAT data is checked when it arrives before any further actions. Plausibility checks are made for instance on the number of observations and range of variable values.

Validation level 1:
Automatic corrections are made to the false or defective observations of the VAT data. Also some critically flawed observations are removed etc. Some partial non response is corrected by imputing on basis of  the auxiliary variables on the data. Manual examination is concentrated mainly on the outlier observations.

Validation level 2-3:
The sums of data variables (main and auxiliary) of the most recent period are compared with those of previous versions. Revisions are analysed on micro and macro level. Yearly growth figures are compared with turnover figures of other domains. Also the special characteristic of each industry is taken into account while validating the data. Checks are made to Business Register data on micro level.

Transmission to Eurostat:
EWA (EDAMIS Web Application) is used for data transmission to Eurostat.

Type of index
The index is calculated using a panel of enterprise level data on turnover. The sum of turnover during the reference month is compared to the sum of turnover during the same month previous year and the year-on-year percentage change is calculated. The change is then used to calculate the index number of the latest reference month. This index number is corrected by the index of recently established enterprises and by the index of enterprises that have closed. The turnover index is deflated to approximate the production.
For the base year the index is calculated directly from the turnover sums. (Possible because by time of the base year change, the data is already fully accumulated for the year in question).

Data editing
The combined micro level data, which includes both VAT and survey observations, is studied in detail for the most influential yearly changes in wages and salaries. The erroneous figures are corrected. At this point, many of the mergers and split offs are detected. Most of the information of the mergers, split offs etc. come from administrative sources and are treated automatically. If detected in microlevel checking treatment is semiautomatic and the information have to be entered in the database manually.

Estimates for non-response
Imputations are made by five simple methods for the latest and the second latest month. Note that only the most reliable values are taken into account.

Weighting
Since indices are based on total data, the compilation process of the turnover indices does not include weighting. Whereas, in the panel technique, an enterprise gets the weight of its share of the sum of turnover in the panel for a given month. This is a fixed base year index.

The production (volume) index of total construction is obtained by weighting the volume indices of construction of buildings (division 41 of NACE Rev. 2), civil engineering (division 42 of NACE Rev. 2) and specialised construction activities (division 43 of NACE Rev. 2). The applied weights are the value added shares from the national accounts of the base year.

From the beginning of January 2018 time series modelling has been used for helping calculations of the indices at a lag of around 45 days. Time series modelling can also be used for some industries at a lag of 75 days in calculations of data. More information about the used forecast methods is available on the Methodological Report  available here http://tilastokeskus.fi/til/rlv/report_v1_2018-10-03_men_001_en.pdf

Deflators
The production index is obtained by deflating. A sub-index of Volume index of newbuilding is used as a deflator for construction of buildings (division 41) and specialised construction activities (division 43). For the civil engineering (division 42) the Cost index of civil engineering works is used as a deflator.

Seasonal adjustment
Gross, working day adjusted, seasonally adjusted and trend series are produced with TRAMO/SEATS-method.

- Software used is JDemetra+ 2.2.2.
- The automated approach is used for those series for which it performs well. Others are modeled manually. The verification of the adequacy of the models is done with the various tests which can be found in JDemetra+.
- Partial concurrent adjustment is applied.
- National calendar and RegARIMA modelling is used.
- Direct approach in seasonal adjustment is used in different aggregation levels. No benchmarking.

More information about the seasonal adjustment in Annex.

Information about the seasonal adjustment policies in Statistics Finland is available here: http://www.stat.fi/til/tramo_seats_en.html

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