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Structural business statistics Eurostat Metadata in SDDS format : Summary Methodology |
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Geographical area |
European Union (EU25), EU Candidate countries, Norway, Switzerland |
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Data category |
Structural business statistics (SBS) |
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Last update of this document: (see notes) |
30 November 2006 |
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Last certification: (see notes) |
2 May 2007 |
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Concepts, definitions and classifications
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Contact |
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Eurostat,
Statistical Office of the European Communities, For
any question on data and metadata, please contact: |
1. Concepts, definitions and classifications
Statistical concept
Structural Business Statistics (SBS) describe the economy through the observation of the activity of units engaged in an economic activity. They answer such questions as: how much wealth is created in an activity? How many work forces are needed to create this wealth? How is this activity developing? Is this activity participating in the growth of the economy? How much investments are realized in this activity?
Definition of Indicators
The SBS characteristics are defined in Commission Regulation No 2700/98. This regulation covers all business demographic, employment and monetary characteristics as well as indicators consisting of ratios of monetary characteristics or per head values.
Characteristics and indicators are also coded by a 5 digit number. The first two digits indicate the set the characteristics belong to. Some main characteristics collected in the framework of the structural business statistics are:
§ Business Demographic variables: (set of characteristics coded as 11 xx x)
o number of enterprises: a count of the number of enterprises active during at least a part of the reference period.
o number of local units: a count of the number of local units active during at least a part of the reference period.
§ “Input related” variables
- Labour inputs (coded as 16 xx x)
o Number of persons employed is defined as the total number of persons who work in the observation unit (inclusive of working proprietors, partners working regularly in the unit and unpaid family workers), as well as persons who work outside the unit who belong to it and are paid by it (e.g. sales representatives, delivery personnel, repair and maintenance teams). It excludes manpower supplied to the unit by other enterprises, persons carrying out repair and maintenance work in the enquiry unit on behalf of other enterprises, as well as those on compulsory military service.
o Number of employees is defined as those persons who work for an employer and who have a contract of employment and receive compensation in the form of wages, salaries, fees, gratuities, piecework pay or remuneration in kind. A worker from an employment agency is considered to be an employee of that temporary employment agency and not of the unit (customer) in which they work.
- Cost of inputs (coded as 13 xx x)
o Total purchases of goods and services include the value of all goods and services purchased during the accounting period for resale or consumption in the production process, excluding capital goods (the consumption of which is registered as consumption of fixed capital).
o Personnel costs are defined as the total remuneration, in cash or in kind, payable by an employer to an employee (regular and temporary employees as well as home workers) in return for work done by the latter during the reference period. Personnel costs also include taxes and employees' social security contributions retained by the unit as well as the employer's compulsory and voluntary social contributions. Personnel costs are made up of wages and salaries and employers' social security costs
- Capital input (coded as 15 xx x)
o Gross investment in tangible goods is defined as investment during the reference period in all tangible goods. Included are new and existing tangible capital goods, whether bought from third parties or produced for own use (i.e. Capitalised production of tangible capital goods), having a useful life of more than one year including non-produced tangible goods such as land. Investments in intangible and financial assets are excluded.
§ “Output related” variables: (coded as 12 xx x)
o Turnover comprises the totals invoiced by the observation unit during the reference period, and this corresponds to market sales of goods or services supplied to third parties; it includes all duties and taxes on the goods or services invoiced by the unit with the exception of the VAT invoiced by the unit to its customer and other similar deductible taxes directly linked to turnover; it also includes all other charges (transport, packaging, etc.) passed on to the customer. Price reductions, rebates and discounts as well as the value of returned packing must be deducted.
o Production value measures the amount actually produced by the unit, based on sales, including changes in stocks and the resale of goods and services. The production value is defined as turnover, plus or minus the changes in stocks of finished products, work in progress and goods and services purchased for resale, minus the purchases of goods and services for resale, plus capitalised production, plus other operating income (excluding subsidies). Income and expenditure classified as financial or extra-ordinary in company accounts is excluded from production value.
o Value added at factor costs is the gross income from operating activities after adjusting for operating subsidies and indirect taxes. Value adjustments (such as depreciation) are not subtracted.
SBS consists of a horizontal module (Annex 1), including a limited set of basic statistics for all market activities. Six sector-specific annexes cover a more extended list of sector-specific characteristics. The sector-specific annexes are: industry (Annex 2), distributive trades (Annex 3), construction (Annex 4), insurance services (Annex 5), credit institutions (Annex 6) and pension funds (Annex 7). The detailed overview of the availability of characteristics by sector is found in a Commission Regulation No 2701/98. For example, annex 2 for industry includes a breakdown of the gross investment in tangible goods into categories of goods, more detail regarding stocks, costs of energy consumption, payments for agency workers, number of part-time workers, number of persons employed in full-time equivalent units and number of hours worked by employees. A breakdown of the turnover between industrial activity, construction, trade and services is also collected.
Classification system and conformity with official standards
Council Regulation No 58/97, amended by Commission Regulation No 1614/2002 and European Parliament and Council Regulation No 2056/2002 are the main legal framework for structural business statistics. Legal texts relevant for SBS are available in several languages on Business Methods. An overview is also found in the background section of the dedicated website. For the implementation of the Council Regulation a number of Commission Regulations were adopted, specifying the characteristics, the series of data to be provided, the technical format for the transmission of the data and possible derogations.
Annual enterprise statistics: National data are broken down at the detailed (4-digit) level of the Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community (NACE Rev.1 until 2001, and NACE Rev. 1.1 since 2002).
Annual enterprise statistics broken down by size classes: Employment size classes are used for breakdowns in all sectors, combined with an activity detail on NACE group (3 digits) level. Turnover size classes are used for trade and sales area size classes are defined for a specific series applying only to retail trade.
Annual regional statistics: Regional data are broken down according to the NUTS-2 classification, generally combined with a NACE division (2 digits) level activity detail (but a more detailed NACE 3-digit group level activity breakdown for the trade sector). More information on these nomenclatures is found on the appropriate ESTAT website 'RAMON'.
Specific statistical series have been defined, most often applying to one sector specific annex only. More information is found in the appropriate SDDS files, please click here.
The detailed overview of the series defined by annex, is found in a Commission Regulation N° 2701/98 and amended by N°1614/2002 and N°1669/2003.
2. Scope / coverage of the data
Geographical coverage
The data category covers EU25, the EU Candidate countries, Norway and Switzerland. Not only country specific data are disseminated but European aggregates as well.
Statistical units
National data and data broken down by size class of number of persons employed both refer to enterprises.
The enterprise is the smallest combination of legal units that is an organisational unit producing goods or services, which benefits from a certain degree of autonomy in decision-making, especially for the allocation of its current resources. An enterprise carries out one or more activities at one or more locations. An enterprise may be a sole legal unit.
Regional data refer to local units.
The local unit is an enterprise or part thereof (e.g. a workshop, factory, warehouse, office, mine or depot) situated in a geographically identified place. At or from this place economic activity is carried out for which - save for certain exceptions - one or more persons work (even if only part-time) for one and the same enterprise.
For detailed information on statistical units, please see either Chapter 3 of the Eurostat Manual of Business Statistics Business or the Council Regulation (EEC) No 696/93 of 15 March 1993 on the statistical units for the observation and analysis of the production system in the Community (Official Journal of the European Communities No L 076, 30/03/1993, p. 1), Section III of 15.03.1993 on the statistical units for the observation and analysis of the production system in the Community.
Statistical population
The SBS regulation covers NACE Rev.1.1 sections C to K, which broadly speaking covers Market activities.
Reference period
SBS data refer to the calendar year, which in most cases corresponds to the fiscal year. 1995 is the first reference year for SBS implementation. The period 1995-1998 corresponds to a transitional period in SBS implementation. The data set is more complete starting from reference year 1999. Thus, European aggregates are available for most important variables and tables from reference year 1999 onwards.
Base period
Annual data are requested. Some series with mostly specialist information on a specific sector, which is burdensome to collect, are covered on a multi-annual basis.
Recording of transactions
Financial data used generally derive from accounting data.
Data sources used
SBS data are generally collected by the National Statistical Institutes (NSI) among enterprises.
Type of survey
The data are collected through statistical surveys, the business register or administrative sources. The NSIs can use one or several of these sources, according to the survey strategy they have adopted, taking into account the costs, the quality and the response burden on enterprises. For more detailed definition on these statistical sources, please click here.
Recent and detailed information on the statistical system and the SBS survey strategy of individual member states (MS), candidate countries (CC) or European Economic Area countries (NO, CH) is available.
Techniques of data collection
As far as statistical surveys are concerned, large businesses are completely enumerated whereas small businesses are usually sampled only.
5. Compilation practices (data processing)
Compilation of European aggregates
The following European aggregate is available:
EU25 (European Union, 25 countries, starting from reference year 1999)
Missing data are estimated for the purpose of the calculation of European aggregates only, these estimates are not released. Countries might send data with substantial delays to the regulation deadline. Occasionally, some characteristics or some NACE codes are missing. Eurostat would be unable to release European aggregates if these data were not estimated.
In order to protect confidential data at the national level a random perturbation has been applied to some of the EU25 aggregates (in the free data dissemination these aggregates are marked with an “i”). This way the confidential data at national level can only be determined with a very high error margin, the EU aggregates are however still acceptably accurate. A consequence of this method to hide confidential national data is that the breakdown of the data for a certain activity level into more detailed activities does not correspond fully with the figure provided for this activity level.
Adjustments
Monetary characteristics of the different countries are converted to and/or rounded to millions of euro.
Data validation of statistical data
At Eurostat level data is validated before publishing. A number of logical checks between different variables are performed and the consistency of data over time is checked as well.
Revision policy
Eurostat accepts the revision of definitive data. Whenever national data are revised, European aggregates are revised accordingly so that both data (at national and EU level) are synchronised.
Comparisons over time and across countries are sometimes limited by methodological factors. Main issues are summarised here.
Structural Business Statistics on the non-financial business economy have many characteristics in common. As such they are the backbone of a wider set of related statistics, covering also the financial sector (for which there are related characteristics) and several development programs existing for specific topics: click here.
Last update: Date of most recent update of these metadata.
Last certification: Date of most recent certification by the author on the accuracy of these metadata.