Statistics Austria

Department for Science, Technology and Education

Guglgasse 13
1110 Wien

The Continuing Vocational Training Survey (CVTS) collects information on enterprises’ investment in the continuing vocational training of their staff. Continuing vocational training (CVT) refers to education or training measures or activities which are financed in total or at least partly by the enterprise (directly or indirectly). Part financing could include the use of work-time for the training activity as well as financing of training equipment.

Information available from the CVTS is grouped around the following topics:

- Provision of CVT courses and other forms of CVT (training/non-training enterprises)

- CVT strategies

- Participants in CVT courses

- Costs of CVT courses

- Time spent in CVT courses

- Characteristics of CVT courses

- Assessment of CVT activities

The CVTS also collects some information on initial vocational training (IVT).

For further information see the CVTS 6 legislation (http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/education-and-training/legislation) and the CVTS 6 implementation manual (http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/education-and-training/methodology).

The main groupings for enterprises are by economic activity (NACE), size group and training/non-training enterprises.

CVTS 6 covers all economic activities defined in sections B to N and R to S of NACE Rev. 2.

Definitions as well as the list of variables covered are available in the CVTS 6 implementation manual (http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/education-and-training/methodology).

Enterprise.

Enterprise definition is compliant with Council Regulation (EEC) No 696/93.

Target Population: 39 498

Variable A2tot (persons employed) refers to the annual average 2020.

Austria.

1999, 2005, 2010, 2015, 2020.

Not applicable.

Number, EUR

The reference year for CVTS 6 is the calendar year 2020.

At European level

Basic legal act: Regulation (EC) No 1552/2005 of the European Parliament and the Council

Implementing act: Commission Regulation (EU) No 1153/2014, amending Commission Regulation (EC) No 198/2006

At national level:

No specific national legislation.

Not applicable.

National standard documentation (in German) about CVTS 6 will be published in 2023.

National standard documentation (in German) about CVTS 6 will be published in 2023.

Publication of the main results on the website on 16.12.2022 - https://www.statistik.at/statistiken/bevoelkerung-und-soziales/bildung/betriebliche-weiterbildung

Press release and final report on 17.02.2023 - https://www.statistik.at/fileadmin/publications/Betriebliche-Weiterbildung-2020_Web-Barrierefrei.pdf

Not applicable.

Statistics Austria on-line database "stat cube" with CVTS 6 aggregated data will be made available for public during 2023.

Micro-data will be made available for certified research institutions in Austria within the Austrian Micro Data Center (AMDC) during 2023.

Every 5 years.

Press release on 17.02.2023 - https://www.statistik.at/fileadmin/announcement/2023/02/20230217BetrieblicheWeiterbildung2020.pdf 

Tables with main results are available on the homepage of Statistics Austria since 16.12.2022 - https://www.statistik.at/statistiken/bevoelkerung-und-soziales/bildung/betriebliche-weiterbildung 

Statistics Austria on-line database "stat cube" with CVTS 6 aggregated data will be made available for public during 2023.

Micro-data will be made available for certified research institutions in Austria within the Austrian Micro Data Center (AMDC) during 2023.

Not applicable.

Micro-data will be made available for certified research institutions in Austria within the Austrian Micro Data Center (AMDC) during 2023.

Austrian companies that participated in the CVT survey receive a national report containing most important results.

Not applicable.

National standard documentation (in German) about CVTS 6 will be published in 2023.

Not applicable.

National standard documentation (in German) about CVTS 6 will be published in 2023.

Interviewers were specifically trained for the first data collection phase (CATI) with regard to the central interview questions (B1a, B1b, B2aflag till B2eflag). Wording and sequence of interview questions were predetermined by a fixed interview guideline programmed within own developed questionnaire software. Moreover, the telephone interviews were conducted by control/help of a supervisor.

CVTS 6 was again carried out as a voluntary survey in Austria with negative impact on participation rate. However, it was at least possible to motivate 53% enterprises of the sample to participate in the main CAWI survey. In addition, a short computer assisted telephone interview (CATI) was conducted prior to the main CAWI survey. Thus, it was possible to gather worthwhile information regarding the core CVT questions "provision of CVT courses" and "provision of other forms of CVT" from additional 16% of the sample.

As expected, the main problems in the main survey showed up once again in module C (participants, providers, costs). The questions within this module are both the most interesting ones for the data users and the ones most difficult to answer precisely for the enterprises.

Of the other modules, the most problematic question was B5 (CVT contributions and receipts), that is needed for the calculation of the core variable C7tot.

CVTS 6 results were particularly relevant for relevant stakeholder to assess the consequence of national corona measures on the extent of CVT activities within companies. Moreover, results were also meaningful for researchers and social partners to calculate the distribution of CVT expenditures between private individuals and companies.

In order to raise both motivation of enterprises to participate in further CVT surveys and interest for results the national report with important descriptive results is disseminated to all participating enterprises.

No deviations.

Not applicable.

We assume a high accuracy of our estimates. Indeed, the survey faced relative high unit- and item- non-response rates, but complex methods for weighting and imputation (see 13.2.1 and 18.5.1) were employed to prevent any systematic bias.

Description of sampling information method used:

The sample was drawn by stratified sampling with strata defined by NACE 2-groups (20 groups) and size classes (3 groups).

Description of grossing up procedures:

For all respondents a basic weight d_i=N_h/n_h is computed. Afterwards an adjustment factor is computed within each strata h for the classes "No training", "Training without courses" and "Training with courses". This factor is based on the short questionnaire given to both the respondents of a preliminary telephone survey CATI as well as the respondents of the main survey. It is defined by

f_ch=(x_ch* n_h)/(y_ch*s_h)

with

n_h with ...the number of respondents in stratum h,
s_h ... the number of respondents to the short questionnaire in stratum h,
x_ch ... the number of respondents to the short questionnaire in training class c and stratum h
y_ch ... the number of respondents in training class c and stratum h.

The weights are then defined by g_i=d_i * f_ch.

The final step is to adjust the weights according to the grossed-up size of the stratum, the corresponding factor for stratum h is defined by j_h=N_h/L_h with

N_h ... the size of stratum h in the population
L_h ... the grossed-up size of stratum h with weights g_i.

The final weight w_i are then computed by w_i=g_i * j_h.

Calculation of coefficients: The coefficients of variation were calculated with respect to the complex survey design. However, the presence of imputation was not taken into account.

See table 13.2.1 "Sampling errors - indicators" in annex "AT - QR tables CVTS 2020 (excel)".

No deviation.

Sampling frame: National Business Register. It is frequently updated.

There is almost no time lag expected for the sampling frame: Sampling was done in February 2021 and the CATI interviews started in March 2021.

See table 13.3.1 "Coverage error" in annex "AT - QR tables CVTS 2020 (excel)".

See table 13.3.1.1 "Over-coverage - rate" in annex "AT - QR tables CVTS 2020 (excel)". 

Not applicable.

On-going plausibility validation of data by applying different parts of checking rules was done when 1) programming the e-questionnaire, 2) pre-processing application, final CSV files.

Systematic errors are not known.

Information from first data collection phase (CATI, response rate: 43%) concerning core CVT activities was used for enquiring key person for CAWI survey and additional calibration of data of main data collection phase (CAWI survey).

In order to reduce non-response several contact attempts were made:

1. Phone call: in order to enquire address, contact person, email-address and key questions of questionnaire
2. Letter via mail with access code to e-questionnaire
3. 1st reminder via Email and Mail (with access code to e-questionnaire)
4. 2nd reminder via Mail (with both access code to e-quest and paper based questionnaire)

Method used for adjustment for unit non-response: see comments made in 13.2 (Sampling error).

See table 13.3.3.1 "Unit non-response - rate" in annex "AT - QR tables CVTS 2020 (excel)".

See table 13.3.3.2 "Item non-response - rate" in annex "AT - QR tables CVTS 2020 (excel)".

Description of data editing process:

1) CATI: data enquiry of core CVT activities by Stat Surv (own software by Statistics Austria) and further data management by MS Excel.
2) CAWI: data were transferred to a pre-processing application -> plausibility validation. PAPI-data were manually entered in E-Quest.
3) E-Quest data were exported as XML as well as text (e.g. .csv) files. Then further data checks were performed by means of the statistical program R and MS Excel. In case of inconsistent data, data was again cleaned by erasure or the respondent was contacted again and data corrected.

Unfortunately, a small number of enterprises gave inconsistent or implausible answers (instead of skipping these questions). In these cases, enterprises were re-contacted for clarification and/or respective data were changed (see comments made in 3.4 - data validation).

No error.

T + 24 months.

16.12.2022.

17.02.2023.

Countries should transmit data to Eurostat no later than 18 months after the end of the reference year.

See table 14.2 "Project phases - dates" in annex "AT - QR tables CVTS 2020 (excel)".

Not applicable.

See table 15.1 "Comparability - geographical" in annex "AT - QR tables CVTS 2020 (excel)".

No additional variables related to COVID-19 were collected.

Not applicable.

See table 15.2 "Comparability - over time" in annex "AT - QR tables CVTS 2020 (excel)".

Not applicable.

See table 15.3 "Coherence - cross-domain" in annex "AT - QR tables CVTS 2020 (excel)".

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

CVTS results for a given reference year are based on the same microdata and results are calculated using the same estimation methods, therefore the data are internally coherent.

We did not collect systematic information on the burden for respondents. But during the data collection phase several enterprises were contacted via phone calls or emails (refusals, concrete demands concerning various questions) and we got the impression that mainly small-sized enterprises encountered problems with personnel capacity to fill in the questionnaire, while mainly large-sized companies faced problems to enquire quantitative data for filling in the questionnaire.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

See table 18.1 "Source data and data collection" in annex "AT - QR tables CVTS 2020 (excel)".

Every 5 years.

See also table 18.1 "Source data and data collection" in annex "AT - QR tables CVTS 2020 (excel)".

The survey design was a 2-step approach.

1) CATI: The first phase of the survey consisted of very short computer assisted telephone interviews (CATI) generally covering address of company, contact person and its email-address and the core question B1 whether there were CVT courses in 2020. Enterprises that had no CVT courses were in addition asked the core questions B2aflag, B2bflag, B2cflag, B2dflag and B2eflag.

2) CAWI and paper-based questionnaire (when required): In the main phase of the survey, the enterprises got electronic questionnaires. The information that was gathered through the computer assisted telephone interviews of the first phase was prefilled in the electronic questionnaire, but respondents were able to revise these prefilled answers. When sending a second reminder per mail, enterprises were offered also a paper version of the questionnaire. Only a minority of the participating enterprises (13%) returned paper questionnaires that had to be entered manually in the electronic questionnaire.

Most of the participating enterprises (87%) filled in the electronic questionnaire (CAWI) that already included most of the checking rules in the annexes 8, 9 and 10 of the Eurostat Manual. After the electronic questionnaires were submitted by the enterprises, they were transferred to a pre-processing application. Here, the questionnaires were separated and categorized by further central checking rules. Based on the different criteria, the questionnaire information was used for administrative updates (e.g. address changes) or plausibility validation. In case of inconsistent data, data was cleaned by erasure or the respondent was contacted again and data corrected. It was possible to correct the respondent data within this application, which logs all changes that were made to the questionnaire. Finally, the questionnaires were exported as XML as well as text (e.g. .csv) files.
Then further data checks were performed by means of the statistical program R and MS Excel. In case of inconsistent data, data was again cleaned by erasure or the respondent was contacted again and data corrected.

Main errors detected in post data collection:
C2m + C2f<>C1tot: 46 cases
C3i+C3e<>C3tot: 33 cases
C4a+C4b<>100: 78 cases
C7sub<>C7a+C7b+C7c+C7d: 8 cases
Implausible values:
A4: 135 cases
B5b: 45 cases
C1tot: 49 cases
C3tot: 74 cases
C7sub: 17 cases

Not applicable.

See table 18.5.1 "Imputation - rate" in annex "AT - QR tables CVTS 2020 (excel)".

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

In general, the precise breakdown of training costs (C7, B5) is very difficult to enquire for many companies and therefore a high burden for achieving high response rate.

We assume our chosen 2-step approach of data collection (CATI, CAWI / paper-based questionnaires when required) as good practice for reducing non-response error.