Central Statistics Office of Ireland

Earnings Analysis

Central Statistics Office, Skehard Road, Cork, Ireland, T12 X00E 

Job vacancy statistics (JVS) provide information on the level and structure of labour demand. The country transmits to Eurostat the quarterly data on the number of job vacancies and the number of occupied posts as well as provides the quality report under the JVS framework regulation and the two implementing regulations: the implementing regulation on the definition of a job vacancy, the reference dates for data collection, data transmission specifications and feasibility studies, as well as the implementing regulation on seasonal adjustment procedures and quality reports.

Ireland has collected job vacancy data since 2008 and have maintained the timeseries to date. Job vacancy data was published nationally for the first time in May 2015 and will be updated on a quarterly basis. The overall vacancies and vacancy rate for Ireland was made available previously through Eurostat, but a sectoral breakdown was not available. Job vacancy information is collected by the Central Statistics Office.

Job Vacancy statistics are gathered as follows: Respondents are asked to provide the number of job vacancies in their firm as at the last working day of the quarter. A job vacancy is defined as a newly created post, an unoccupied post or post about to become vacant in the near future, where the employer is actively looking for (i.e. advertising, contacting employment agencies, etc.) and willing to recruit a suitable candidate immediately or very soon. The posts must be open to external candidates, although it may be filled by an internal candidate. Due to one off recruitments by individual firms and a low number of firms reporting vacancies, the job vacancies series can be volatile and should be interpreted with caution. 

The quarterly data are broken down by economic activity (at section level) in accordance with NACE Rev. 2 - Statistical classification of economic activities in the European Community.

All economic activities defined by NACE Rev. 2, except agriculture, forestry and fishing activities (optional in the JVS framework regulation), and the activities of households as employers and the activities of extraterritorial organisations and bodies.

A 'job vacancy' is defined as a paid post that is newly created, unoccupied, or about to become vacant:

(a) for which the employer is taking active steps and is prepared to take further steps to find a suitable candidate from outside the enterprise concerned; and

(b) which the employer intends to fill either immediately or within a specific period of time.

‘Active steps to find a suitable candidate’ include:

- notifying the job vacancy to the public employment services,

- contacting a private employment agency/head hunters,

- advertising the vacancy in the media (for example internet, newspapers, magazines),

- advertising the vacancy on a public notice board,

- approaching, interviewing or selecting possible candidates/potential recruits directly,

- approaching employees and/or personal contacts,

- using internships.

'Specific period of time’ refers to the maximum time the vacancy is open and intended to be filled. That period shall be unlimited; all vacancies for which active steps are continuing on the reference date shall be reported.

An 'occupied post’ means a paid post within the organisation to which an employee has been assigned.

Enterprise

Enterprises with three and more employees

The geographical area covered is the Republic of Ireland.

From 2008 to present

Not applicable.

Extensive edits rules are applied to check unit level data each time a dataset is compiled, with additional quarterly checks against previous returns for all enterprises with 250 or more employees.

The main checks performed on the data include:

• Check that all relevant variables are filled in correctly for each category received:
  • Ensure that employment is present both at beginning and end of the quarter
  • Ensure that both wages and hours variables are present (regular / overtime)
  • Ensure that both wages and PRSI variables are present
• Check that the hourly rate of wage (regular/irregular/overtime) falls within a reasonable range for the sector
• Check that the average number of hours worked per week (full time/part time/apprentices) fall within a reasonable range for the sector.
• Check that the received figures tally up (e.g. that the PRSI value in the form is within correct parameters for the wages and salaries indicated)
• Check that BIK and pension figures returned are within a reasonable range
• Ensure that the hired and vacancies rates received are correct.

Job vacancies and occupied jobs are transmitted to Eurostat unadjusted and seasonally adjusted.

The managers of the EHECS assess the quality of the survey on an on-going basis and make improvements if and when necessary. The CSO has an internal quality audit team. The production and publication processes for the EHECS were reviewed using a Lean Six Sigma (LSS) approach in 2011 to improve (i) process clarity (ii) efficiency in the data collection process and (iii) timeliness. The EHECS was reviewed again in 2014 using a LSS approach.

In addition to this the EHECS data collection and reporting teams have implemented the Quality Management Framework, which is an office wide initiative to standardise the the quality procudes in the CSO.

The goal of the Quality Management Framework (QMF) in the CSO is to meet the required standard as set out in the European Statistical System Code of Practice (ESCOP). The QMF foundations are based on establishing the UNECE’s Generic Statistical Business Process Model (GSBPM) as the operating statistical production model in the CSO.

The QMSA team have been working on the implementation phase of the QMF since mid- 2016 where they have systematically rolled out the new policies and standards in the form of the quality projects detailed below. The EHECS survey implemented changes required to adhere to the QMF.

• The establishment of the GSBPM as the business process model for the Office. This model is an UNECE standard for statistical production and allows the CSO to advance a more standardised, horizontal approach to quality management. 
• Survey documentation – the improving the level of quality and standardisation of survey documentation across the Office. 
• Process Mapping project – Process mapping is the visual display of steps involved in a business process. It draws a concise picture of the sequence of tasks needed to bring a product or service from start to completion. The main purpose behind business process mapping is to provide clarity on exactly how the process happens, not how it is supposed to happen. 
• Process maintenance project – In order to keep the maps up to date, the process map maintenance policy has been developed which requires business areas to certify that their maps are valid and up to date once a year. 
• Process Metrics and Indicators – In order for staff to make an assessment on how their processes are performing and to better manage the phases of the statistical lifecycle (collection, processing, analysing and the ultimate dissemination of statistical data) appropriate metrics are identified and collected at each phase of the statistical process. These metrics and indicators include response rates, timeliness, edit and imputation rates, precision rates and the degree of revisions. 
• The QMF metadata project designed to establish the standards, based on international best practice, for all relevant parts of the survey life cycle. 
• Quality Review System – This is a self-assessment tool which allows survey owners to review the quality of their statistical processes against the principles of the ESCOP for each phase of the GSBPM they are using.
• Data Management and governance support tools – These include data owners attesting to which data they own and are responsible for, where this data is located and who can access this data. 

The quality of statistics is assessed according to the five quality criteria: relevance, accuracy, timeliness and punctuality, accessibility and clarity, coherence and comparability. Based upon the methodology that is in place and following the documented processes, the EHECS produces high-quality, timely and coherent output that is easily accessible and which meets the needs of its users and the legislative requirements.

An annual Quality Report is available on the CSO website.

The overall quality is deemed to be good, with very limited revisions in the European aggregates.

100%

The statistical accuracy and reliability is determined by the accuracy and reliability of the source of information used in preparing the JVS, the Earnings, Hours and Employment Costs Survey.

The design of the sample attempts to minimize sampling errors and the various processes of the survey are intended to eliminate or reduce as far as possible the errors both in the collection phase and in editing, weighting and imputation stages.

Job vacancies are statistical estimates that are subject to sampling errors because they are based on a sample of enterprises with 3 to 49 employees (in conjunction with a census of enterprises with 50+ employees) which are not the complete universe of all enterprises. In addition, individual enterprises in NACE sections B to S with less than 3 employees are not included in the sample. The CSO tries to reduce sampling errors by using a sample of enterprises that is as large as possible while taking burden on enterprises and time and resource constraints into account.

Over-coverage is analysed at the time that the local register is synchronised with the Central Business Register, while under-coverage following analysis does not appear to be an on-going issue for EHECS.

Not available

The vast majority of the data is sourced from payroll information thus differences between actual values and those collected by the survey are assumed to be small. For both the scanned and electronically submitted data an extensive range of edit checks were undertaken and respondent enterprises were contacted with follow up queries to identify corrections to the data.

Unit and item non-response are detailed below.

If there is item non-response in a survey return, the firm is omitted and consider a unit non-response.

Data is scanned and verified for paper returns, while the electronic returns are uploaded directly to the Data Management System. A dedicated team assists respondents to set up CSO compatible payroll software minimising processing errors.

Provisional data is revised with final data in the subsequent quarter.

The percentage change from preliminary to final data for each indicator and Nace category is published in each EHECS release.

Final data is not subject to revision.

As is the usual practice with short-term data, provisional data is published initially, followed subsequently, at the release of the next quarter’s data, by final data.  For each quarter there will be the current quarter’s provisional data and the previous quarter’s final data.  Thus, there will be a revision to the previous quarter of JVS data each quarter when the current quarter’s JVS data is being sent to Eurostat. Differences between provisional and final data are usually minor.

JVS data sent to Eurostat are seasonally adjusted. The seasonal adjustment specifications for each indicator are updated annually. This update can lead to revisions in historic time series extending back at throughout the entire time series. 

Notice about major changes or revisions (e.g. in classification, methodology or base year) are provided in advance of the change. Notice about minor changes or revisions are given at the time the change is introduced. Major revisions can apply to any point in the series. A recorded is kept in SAS datasets of the old data that have been revised. Minor revision or minor errors that arise are revised for the preceding four quarters.

Provisional Results: The preliminary data are published by the CSO within T + 56 days after the end of the reference quarter. Due to the difficulty of enterprises accessing and sending data to the CSO as a result of the COVID-19 crisis, 2020 results were published within T + 70 days after the end of the reference quarter.  Data is transmitted to Eurostat within T + 70 days.

Final Results: The final data are published by the CSO within T + 162 days after the end of the reference quarter and transmitted to Eurostat within T + 162 days. 

Final results are provided in T + 162 days after the end of the reference period.

Job vacancy data have been transmitted to Eurostat within the agreed time frame.

The definitions of job vacancy statistics as laid out in the regulation were utilised in the setup of the EHECS survey, thus are comparable with other member states which implemented the EU regulations concerning the job vacancy statistics. 

Not available

Comparable time series are available from q1 2008.

Quarterly statistics are used to compile annual job vacancy estimates. These are compared to other sources to check for consistency.

National Accounts do not collect any relevant information regarding job vacancies thus no coherence is carried out.

No other source is available internally for comparison to job vacancies thus no coherence is carried out.

Job Vacancy statistics are published national in the Earnings and Labour Costs quarterly release. Ireland supplies job vacancy data to Eurostat for its inclusion in the Job Vacancy news releases via the Eurostat website.

 The data is made available to the public via the CSO's PxStat tables here.

Not applicable

Microdata is not made available.

Not applicable

Information on methodology is available within the (i) Earnings and Labour Costs – Quarterly and (ii) Earnings and Labour Costs - Annual publications (see Background Notes section of publication). A quality report is prepared annually.

Fully complete

Not available

In order to reduce the burden on enterprises a review of the EHECS was carried out in 2009. As a result a number of methodological changes were introduced which included reducing the content and complexity of the original questionnaire, introducing a shorter questionnaire for small enterprises and promoting and supporting the EHECS Payroll Project which provides an electronic facility to enable enterprises to extract the required survey data directly from their payroll systems.

In 2013, an annualised estimate of the time burden on respondents - based on the total number of returned forms - was calculated to be 7800 hours. 

The data collected is treated as strictly confidential in accordance with the Statistics Act, 1993. The provision on statistical confidentiality is regulated by Sections 32 and 33 of the 1993 Statistics Act

None