Reference metadata describe statistical concepts and methodologies used for the collection and generation of data. They provide information on data quality and, since they are strongly content-oriented, assist users in interpreting the data. Reference metadata, unlike structural metadata, can be decoupled from the data.
Statistics Belgium (part of FPS Economy, SMEs, Self-Employed and Energy)
1.2. Contact organisation unit
Thematic directorate economy
1.3. Contact name
Restricted from publication
1.4. Contact person function
Restricted from publication
1.5. Contact mail address
Boulevard Albert II, 16, 1000 Bruxelles
1.6. Contact email address
Restricted from publication
1.7. Contact phone number
Restricted from publication
1.8. Contact fax number
Restricted from publication
2.1. Metadata last certified
1 February 2023
2.2. Metadata last posted
1 February 2023
2.3. Metadata last update
1 February 2023
3.1. Data description
Structural business statistics (SBS) describes the structure, conduct and performance of economic activities, down to the most detailed activity level (several hundred economic sectors).
SBS covers all activities of the non-financial business economy with the exception of agricultural activities and personal services. Limited information is available on banking, insurance and pension funds.
Main characteristics (variables) of the SBS data category:
Business demographic variables (e.g. Number of enterprises)
"Output related" variables (e.g. Turnover, Value added)
"Input related" variables: labour input (e.g. Employment, Hours worked); goods and services input (e.g. Total of purchases); capital input (e.g. Material investments)
3.2. Classification system
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. Key data were double reported in NACE Rev.1.1 and NACE Rev.2 for 2008. From 2009 onwards, only NACE Rev.2 data are available.
The regional breakdown of the EU Member States is based on the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS). Detailed information about the consecutive NUTS Regulations can be found at Eurostat's website
The SBS coverage was limited to Sections C to K of NACE Rev.1.1 until 2007. Starting from the reference year 2008 data is available for Sections B to N and Division S95 of NACE Rev.2. With 2013 as the first reference year information is published on NACE codes K6411, K6419 and K65 and its breakdown.
Until reference year 2017, the enterprise statistical unit was the legal unit. Since 2018, statistical unit is in line with the Regulation (ECC) No 696/1993 and may consist out of one or more legal units.
3.6. Statistical population
- Nace sections B-N (excl K) + division S95 - Enterprises active in Belgium and foreign enterprises with a sign of activity in Belgium (employment, VAT turnover, annual accounts, ...) are included in the sample and report only for activities in Belgium.
- All size classes are covered
- The frame for SBS statistics is the business register, all data is provided on the enterprise level.
3.7. Reference area
The reference area is the whole territory of Belgium
3.8. Coverage - Time
1996-2020
3.9. Base period
Not applicable.
Number of enterprises and number of local units are expressed in units.
Monetary data are expressed in millions of €.
Employment variables are expressed in units.
Per head values are expressed in thousands of € per head.
Ratios are expressed in percentages.
2020
In most cases, all data refer to calendar years. In cases, in which the source data used for compiling the data of the variable are only available for the fiscal year, and those data cannot be recalculated to cover the calendar year, the calendar year data may be approximated by data on the fiscal year for those statistical units.
6.1. Institutional Mandate - legal acts and other agreements
Aggregated results which are not confidential are published on the website. Full aggregated results (including confidential cells) are transmitted to some public authorities (--> Institute of National Accounts, Belgian National bank) and a limited set of registered main users on basis of confidentiality agreements.
Annual
10.1. Dissemination format - News release
No press release concerning the results of SBS data is issued.
10.2. Dissemination format - Publications
Pdf publications in French and Dutch -> October 2022
Microdata of the structural business survey can be obtained through a confidentiality agreement with Statistics Belgium provided that the applicant fulfills the provison of the Belgian Law on public statistics of 22 March 2006.
10.5. Dissemination format - other
Data are sent to Eurostat, either to be used in European aggregates and to be released also as national data.
Belgium has 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.
11.2. Quality management - assessment
According to the information available from the quality reports, the data providers have applied the recommendations available in the EU Regulations.
More information is available in the Report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on the implementation of the SBS Regulation.
sampling and modelling errors can occur because of the rotating model used to draw the sample (see 13.3 and 16). This model is partly based on VAT data which are estimates of some of the variables
some errors on the NACE codes in the business register can also lead to misclassification in the sampling procedure
for provisional data, annual accounts, VAT data and data of the previous years are used to compute the results, which can lead to some bias. However, provisional data are not disseminated by Statistics Belgium.
13.2. Sampling error
Coefficients of variation are calculated and transferred in different files. The sampling error is estimated to be small, in 88% of the cases, the coefficient of variations are smaller than 10%.
13.3. Non-sampling error
The following methods are applied to take into account unit non-response:
imputation: ratio imputation or hot deck imputation
reweighting
Furthermore, the following measures are taken to minimize non-response:
The survey is compulsory (Belgian Royal Decree of 18 July 2008)
Three reminder letters are sent
Telephone calls and visit are made to large enterprises
In order to calculate the non-response we took only the active and eligible enterprises into account (out-of-scope enterprises have been excluded). We weighted the unit non response rate with the number of persons employed. The overall weighted non-response rate is 5.00 %. Compared to the unweighted non-response rate of 16.36% this means that larger enterprises (in terms of employment) report better. In the overall contest, we evalute this non-response rate as low.
For reference year 2020 the smaller entities from the trade and industrial sectors have been estimated using data on the same units from other sources. The use of past survey data and recent administrative data from several sources can introduce some bias but this is minimized through plausibility controls and checks. Morever, the estimation method concerns smaller enterprises. Therefore we assume that the overall effect on the accuracy of the estimates is limited.
The survey unit non-response may be not random. The potential bias is minimized by using imputations (if possible) for the non-responding enterprises. Moreover, the survey unit non-response is low, especially for the larger units. So we believe there is only a small potential bias resulting from survey non-response.
Errors in the business register can have an effect on sampling and on sampling weights. The exact impact on SBS results is unknown. Errors in adresses of statistical units in the business register also causes a coherence problem between national and regional results. The sum of the regional results is not identical to the national value, but the difference is small in most cases.
1% of the units initially included in the sample are deemed to be out of scope. These units are identified on basis of administrative data or after contact during the survey.
14.1. Timeliness
The data collection ended in April 2022. The post-collection phase ended in June 2022 and the results were published in October 2022.
14.2. Punctuality
Restricted from publication
15.1. Comparability - geographical
The same statistical concepts are applied across entire national territory
15.2. Comparability - over time
Data are comparable between 1996 and 2007 and between 2008 and 2017. Until 2007, NACE Rev.1 is used. From 2008 onwards, results are computed according to NACE Rev.2. Until reference year 2017, the enterprise statistical unit was the legal unit. Since 2018, statistical unit is in line with the Regulation (ECC) No 696/1993 and may consist out of one or more legal units.
15.3. Coherence - cross domain
We compared the characteristics 11910 and 16910 of Annex IX with the characteristics 11110 and 16110 of Annex I-IV. Some rather small inconsistencies due to differences in method (sample selection and grossing up versus full coverage using administrative records, activity criteria, delineation of non-market enterprises, ..)
Comparison of variable 12110 with turnover statistics based on VAT declarations. Some inconsistencies due to difference in definitions and in methods.
15.4. Coherence - internal
Regional results do not add up to national results because some local units have no address in our business register and can therefore not be allocated to a NUTS-group.
Since we prefill the annual account data in the survey forms, we only send out the survey forms when annual account data are largely available (T + 9). Since only a fraction of the survey forms are returned at T + 10 we rely mostly on administrative sources (annual account data, VAT data) for producing preliminary data. For enterprises with no administrative data available, we use values from the preceding years or ratio imputation based on prior survey data and fresh administrative data.
At t+10 administrative data are already of good quality (especially social security data and VAT data; annual accounts data are almost complete).
For employment variable 16110 administrative data from National Social Security Database is our main source for both definitive and preliminary data. (At T + 10 we have almost no detailed information on the number of unpaid workers, but we use a proxy for the variable 16120 at this stage).
18.1. Source data
a) Survey
The sample is divided into two parts with a different methodology
Surveyed enterprises --> PART 1
Model based estimations for non surveyed enterprises --> PART 2
For both parts, the sample is stratified according to employment size class and turnover size class.
The sampling rates are the following: the total sample (parts 1 and 2) include 6% of the enterprises in the population, 76% of employment and 82% of turnover. Enterprises with more than 50 employees are exhaustively selected.
A minimum value of annual turnover is used as treshold and is set to 5,600 euro (according to VAT records).
The effective sample sizes for part 1 and 2 are respectively equal to 35000 and 15000 enterprises.
b) Administrative source
The following administrative sources are used for surveyed enterprises:
Annual Financial Statement of enterprises (full or abbreviated model): balance sheet, profit and loss account, social balance sheet
Statistical business register: 11110 11210 NACE rev. 2 code
Social Security Records: 13310 13320 13330 16130 16140 16150
VAT data on turnover, purchases and investments: 12110, 13110, 15110
The administrative data described above are used for the following purposes for surveyed enterprises:
data source, basic data for some characteristics (prefill in the websurvey)
data source for imputation in case of non-response.
For non surveyed enterprises, the administrative data are used for the same purposes. In addition, these data are also used for imputation or for strata not covered by the survey.
We access micro data for the entire population. The frequency to which the used administrative data sources are updated is considered to be good and subject to several revisions with (increasing) degree of completeness.
c) Frame
The variables used for identifying principal and secondary activities are:
Turnover from the SBS survey
Employment (NACE from social security records)
Value added (NACE from VAT records)
The top down method is used to identitify principal activities. The unit's principal activity is reviewed annually. The business register is updated weekly.
18.2. Frequency of data collection
Annual data collection
18.3. Data collection
The SBS sample selection is carried out in August N+1. Letters are sent to the enterprises begin October. It is possible to answer via internet or on paper. The questionnaires are required to be returned to Statbel before the end of the year. The survey is mandatory. If businesses who have received questionnaires have not responded by the deadline, up to three reminder letters can be sent. Repeated telephone contacts are used to improve response rates. The number of units surveyed is about 35.000. Statbel supplements the collected data with administrative data from other administrations.
18.4. Data validation
The following procedures are used to check the data:
completeness checks (data integrity rules)
validity checks (internal consistency)
plausibility checks
Controls of values from the SBS survey:
At data entry in the websurvey: data type (numerical or character field), compulsory fields, business checks (checking the logical consistency between survey items).
After data entry: controls of microdata: identifying potential problems (errors, discrepancies, outliers, item non-response, miscoding, …). Applying automatic edits and manual inspection and correction of the data.
Controls of the imputations: ratio checking (negative ratios or excessively high ratios), consistency checks, comparison with source data,..
Controls of the employment variables: comparison of social security data with data from the social balance sheet, internal consistency checks on social security data.
Macro controls of aggregated data: year-to-year variation, ratio checking, consistency checks
18.5. Data compilation
The following methods have been applied to take into account non-response:
imputation based on administrative sources (if possible)
data from previous reference period
hot deck imputation
if imputation is not possible, a corrector factor is used in the weighting procedure
The following methods have been applied for grossing-up the figures covered by the SBS Regulation in order to cover the entire population of enterprises:
The estimation based on a stratified sample. The initial sample weights are set for the different strata: number of enterprises in population/number of enterprises in the sample. The non responding enterprises are assigned to different status categories depending on the reason and components of the non-response (e.g. non contact of the selected units, refusal to participate, not eligible, cessation of activities during the reference year, cessation of activities after the reference year, …). The original sampling weights are adapted (with corrector factor) using these status categories.
18.6. Adjustment
There is no correction to bring the data in accordance with the reference period if the reference period differs from the calendar year.
No further comments.
Structural business statistics (SBS) describes the structure, conduct and performance of economic activities, down to the most detailed activity level (several hundred economic sectors).
SBS covers all activities of the non-financial business economy with the exception of agricultural activities and personal services. Limited information is available on banking, insurance and pension funds.
Main characteristics (variables) of the SBS data category:
Business demographic variables (e.g. Number of enterprises)
"Output related" variables (e.g. Turnover, Value added)
"Input related" variables: labour input (e.g. Employment, Hours worked); goods and services input (e.g. Total of purchases); capital input (e.g. Material investments)
Until reference year 2017, the enterprise statistical unit was the legal unit. Since 2018, statistical unit is in line with the Regulation (ECC) No 696/1993 and may consist out of one or more legal units.
- Nace sections B-N (excl K) + division S95 - Enterprises active in Belgium and foreign enterprises with a sign of activity in Belgium (employment, VAT turnover, annual accounts, ...) are included in the sample and report only for activities in Belgium.
- All size classes are covered
- The frame for SBS statistics is the business register, all data is provided on the enterprise level.
The reference area is the whole territory of Belgium
2020
In most cases, all data refer to calendar years. In cases, in which the source data used for compiling the data of the variable are only available for the fiscal year, and those data cannot be recalculated to cover the calendar year, the calendar year data may be approximated by data on the fiscal year for those statistical units.
sampling and modelling errors can occur because of the rotating model used to draw the sample (see 13.3 and 16). This model is partly based on VAT data which are estimates of some of the variables
some errors on the NACE codes in the business register can also lead to misclassification in the sampling procedure
for provisional data, annual accounts, VAT data and data of the previous years are used to compute the results, which can lead to some bias. However, provisional data are not disseminated by Statistics Belgium.
Number of enterprises and number of local units are expressed in units.
Monetary data are expressed in millions of €.
Employment variables are expressed in units.
Per head values are expressed in thousands of € per head.
Ratios are expressed in percentages.
The following methods have been applied to take into account non-response:
imputation based on administrative sources (if possible)
data from previous reference period
hot deck imputation
if imputation is not possible, a corrector factor is used in the weighting procedure
The following methods have been applied for grossing-up the figures covered by the SBS Regulation in order to cover the entire population of enterprises:
The estimation based on a stratified sample. The initial sample weights are set for the different strata: number of enterprises in population/number of enterprises in the sample. The non responding enterprises are assigned to different status categories depending on the reason and components of the non-response (e.g. non contact of the selected units, refusal to participate, not eligible, cessation of activities during the reference year, cessation of activities after the reference year, …). The original sampling weights are adapted (with corrector factor) using these status categories.
a) Survey
The sample is divided into two parts with a different methodology
Surveyed enterprises --> PART 1
Model based estimations for non surveyed enterprises --> PART 2
For both parts, the sample is stratified according to employment size class and turnover size class.
The sampling rates are the following: the total sample (parts 1 and 2) include 6% of the enterprises in the population, 76% of employment and 82% of turnover. Enterprises with more than 50 employees are exhaustively selected.
A minimum value of annual turnover is used as treshold and is set to 5,600 euro (according to VAT records).
The effective sample sizes for part 1 and 2 are respectively equal to 35000 and 15000 enterprises.
b) Administrative source
The following administrative sources are used for surveyed enterprises:
Annual Financial Statement of enterprises (full or abbreviated model): balance sheet, profit and loss account, social balance sheet
Statistical business register: 11110 11210 NACE rev. 2 code
Social Security Records: 13310 13320 13330 16130 16140 16150
VAT data on turnover, purchases and investments: 12110, 13110, 15110
The administrative data described above are used for the following purposes for surveyed enterprises:
data source, basic data for some characteristics (prefill in the websurvey)
data source for imputation in case of non-response.
For non surveyed enterprises, the administrative data are used for the same purposes. In addition, these data are also used for imputation or for strata not covered by the survey.
We access micro data for the entire population. The frequency to which the used administrative data sources are updated is considered to be good and subject to several revisions with (increasing) degree of completeness.
c) Frame
The variables used for identifying principal and secondary activities are:
Turnover from the SBS survey
Employment (NACE from social security records)
Value added (NACE from VAT records)
The top down method is used to identitify principal activities. The unit's principal activity is reviewed annually. The business register is updated weekly.
Annual
The data collection ended in April 2022. The post-collection phase ended in June 2022 and the results were published in October 2022.
The same statistical concepts are applied across entire national territory
Data are comparable between 1996 and 2007 and between 2008 and 2017. Until 2007, NACE Rev.1 is used. From 2008 onwards, results are computed according to NACE Rev.2. Until reference year 2017, the enterprise statistical unit was the legal unit. Since 2018, statistical unit is in line with the Regulation (ECC) No 696/1993 and may consist out of one or more legal units.
