Statistical Service of Cyprus (CYSTAT)

Labour

Statistical Service of Cyprus

CY-1444

Nicosia

Cyprus

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).

The statistical unit for CVTS 6 is the enterprise.

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

CVTS 6 covers enterprises with 10 or more persons employed belonging to certain NACE categories (see 3.3).

The total number of enterprises in the target population was 4 977.

Variable A2tot (persons employed) refers to 31 December 2020.

Government controlled areas of the Republic of Cyprus.

CVTS data are available for 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2020. 

Not applicable.

Percentages, numbers, 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

Article 3 of the national Official Statistics Law, No. 25(I) of 2021 defines the functions of the Statistical Service of Cyprus regarding the production and dissemination of official statistics. Moreover, Article 13, explicitly stipulates the mandate for data collection and introduces a mandatory response to statistical enquiries by stipulating the obligation of respondents to reply to surveys and provide the data required. This relates not only to national but also to European statistics which, by virtue of Article 8 of the said Law, are incorporated in the annual and multiannual programmes of work without any further procedure. 

Not applicable.

Official statistics are released in accordance to all confidentiality provisions of the following:

• National Official Statistics Law No. 25(I) of 2021 (especially Article 16 on statistical confidentiality).
• Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 2009 on European statistics and its later amendments (especially Chapter 5 on statistical confidentiality).
• European Statistics Code of Practice (especially Principle 5 on statistical confidentiality).
• CYSTAT's Code of Practice for the Collection, Publication and Storage of Statistical Data.

The treatment of confidential data is regulated by CYSTAT's Code of Practice for the Collection, Publication and Storage of Statistical Data, see 7.1.

Notifications about the dissemination of statistics are published in the release calendar, which is available on CYSTAT’s website. The annual release calendar, announced during the 4^th quarter of the year, includes provisional dates of publication for the following year, which are finalised the week before publication.

Link to CYSTAT’s release calendar: https://www.cystat.gov.cy/en/AnnouncementList

According to the Dissemination and Pricing Policy of the Statistical Service of Cyprus (section 2.3) CYSTAT΄s main channel for dissemination of statistics is the website, which offers the same conditions to everyone and is updated at the same time every working day (12:00 noon). Privileged pre-released access (of no more than 1 day in advance) has been granted to a few selected users for specific statistics. These are specified in the Dissemination Policy (section 2.3).

In addition to the annual release calendar, users are informed of the various statistical releases through the “Alert” service provided by CYSTAT.

CVTS data are sent to Eurostat every 5 years.

None.

A report (publication) is available only for year 2005 on CYSTAT's web portal.

No CVTS data in the national online database.

CVTS data are available in Eurostat's online database: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/education-and-training/data/database.

Not applicable.

Statistical micro-data from CYSTAT’s surveys are accessible for research purposes only and under strict provisions as described below:

Under the provisions of the Statistics Law, CYSTAT may release microdata for the sole use of scientific research. Applicants have to submit the request form "APPLICATION FOR DATA FOR RESEARCH PURPOSES" giving thorough information on the project for which micro-data are needed.

The application is evaluated by CYSTAT’s Confidentiality Committee and if the application is approved, a charge is fixed according to the volume and time consumed for preparation of the data. Micro-data may then be released after an anonymisation process which ensures no direct identification of the statistical units but, at the same time, ensures usability of the data. The link for the application is attached below.

None.

Not applicable.

For CVTS 6 a detailed implementation manual is available which contains definitions and additional methodological explanations, a European standard questionnaire and the code book. 

The implementation manuals are attached below.

Not applicable.

Quality Reports for CVTS are available on Eurostat's website: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/education-and-training/quality.

The quality of statistics in CYSTAT is managed in the framework of the European Statistics Code of Practice which sets the standards for developing, producing and disseminating European Statistics as well as the ESS Quality Assurance Framework (QAF). CYSTAT endorses the Quality Declaration of the European Statistical System. In addition, CYSTAT is guided by the requirements provided for in Article 11 of the Statistics Law No. 25(I) of 2021 as well as Article 12 of Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics, which sets out the quality criteria to be applied in the development, production and dissemination of European statistics.

The output quality in the European Statistical System is assessed in terms of the following 5 quality criteria: relevance, accuracy, timeliness and punctuality, coherence and comparability and accessibility and clarity. These evaluation criteria are described in the Quality Declaration of the European Statistical System. Taking into account the above criteria and the quality indicators, the overall quality of the statistics produced is satisfactory.

The main users of the Continuing Vocational Training Survey (besides EUROSTAT) include Policy makers at European level (e.g., European Commission, European Parliament, other European agencies), national authorities (e.g. Human Resource Development Authority of Cyprus), academics/researchers/students, trade unions, international organisations (e.g., OECD, UN) and enterprises.

Data for CVT strategies (objectives, decision process), CVT characteristics (internal/external courses, other forms, subjects, providers), CVT volume (participants, hours), CVT costs, CVT quality, outcomes and difficulties and for IVT can be used for decision making, assessment of provided training and for own market research.

Since 2008 CYSTAT carries out an annual online “Users Satisfaction Survey”. The results of the surveys are available on CYSTAT’s website at the link attached below.

Overall, there is a high level of satisfaction of the users of statistical data published by CYSTAT.

The final dataset for CVTS 6 covers all NACE sectors, enterprise size groups and variables as requested in the CVTS 6 legislation (http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/education-and-training/legislation).

Not applicable.

Since the results of the survey are based on a sample selected from the Business Register, they are subject to sampling and non-sampling errors.

The coefficients of variation (CVs) for the main indicators of the survey are presented in table 13.2.1 "Sampling errors - indicators" in annex "CY - QR tables CVTS 2020 (excel)".

The coefficients of variation for the total number of enterprises for the main indicators of the survey show that the resulting data are reliable. 

The sampling frame was the Business Register. The sample was selected using simple random sampling in each of the strata specified in Section 4 of the CVTS 6 manual (https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/education-and-training/methodology).

The sample size was given by:

For the classification of enterprises into strata in order to calculate weights the information for NACE and SIZE groups collected for CVTS 6 and the updated Business Register were used. Therefore, the final weights in stratum h were given by N_h/n_h, where N_h=number of enterprises in stratum h in the updated frame and n_h=number of enterprises in stratum h in the net sample (the NACE and SIZE groups from CVTS 6 were used).

In order to calculate the coefficients of variation in table 13.2.1, the R language and the package ReGenesees were used.

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

See items 13.3.1 - 13.3.5 below.

The sampling frame was extracted from the Cyprus Statistical Business Register. The Statistical Business Register covers all Legal Units, Enterprises, Local Units and Enterprise Groups carrying out an economic activity according to the Statistical Classification of Economics Activities NACE Rev. 2 of the European Union. It is updated on an annual basis. The enterprises belonging to the Nace and Size groups specified in the Commission Regulation (EU) No 1153/2014 were selected in order to form the Sampling Frame for CVTS 6. The sample was selected from the Sampling Frame with reference year 2019, since this was the latest available version. Some enterprises in the sample were ineligible (i.e., did not belong to the target population of enterprises). Enterprises that were in the sample of Labour Cost Survey were excluded, so as to reduce the burden of response. 

The final weights were calculated using the Sampling Frame with reference year 2019.

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

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

Not applicable.

Errors due to the questionnaire design

Errors due to the questionnaire design were limited since the questionnaire was designed according to the instructions of the CVTS 6 manual. 

Mode of data collection and measurement error

For the first time CAWI was used for the CVTS data collection. Enterprises completed an online questionnaire on their own. Even though enough explanations were provided for each question, enterprises might have answered quickly and not carefully.

Interviewers then checked the completed questionnaires and, where needed, they had a follow-up phone contact with the enterprise for clarifications.

Methods used to reduce this kind of errors

We tried to tackle these problems by investing enough time in training the interviewers and conducting follow-up phone calls where necessary.

The size of the gross sample was 1620 enterprises, of which 269 were ineligible and 143 did not reply. The non-response rate for all enterprises was 10.6%. The main reason for non-response was the unwillingness of the personnel of the company to give information due to lack of time. In order to reduce non-response, the following procedure was followed:

1. An email informing enterprises about the purpose of the Survey was sent to all enterprises in the sample.
2. The Statistics Officer who was in charge of the survey, contacted enterprises that refused to respond via telephone.
3. A second email was sent to all respondents who refused to cooperate in order to arrange a personal or telephone meeting for collection of data within a predefined timeframe.

In order to correct the bias due to non-response re-weighting was used, i.e., the weights are given by the formula N_h/n_h, where n_h is the actual number of responding enterprises in stratum h.

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

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

Since the CAWI module of Blaise was used, i.e. interviews with validation checks incorporated at the phase of collection of data, processing errors were significantly reduced. Additionally, interviewers checked the completed questionnaires and contacted the enterprises to clarify certain answers.

Not applicable.

The reference period for CVTS 6 is the calendar year 2020. Data were transmitted to Eurostat by the end of June 2022.

Not applicable.

18 months after the end of the reference period.

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 "CY - QR tables CVTS 2020 (excel)".

Not applicable.

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

No additional variables related to COVID-19 were collected.

Not applicable.

Requirements for CVTS 6 remained unchanged compared to CVTS 5. 

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

Not applicable.

The comparison of the number of persons employed between Structural Business Statistics (SBS) and CVTS 6 are presented in table 15.3 "Coherence - cross-domain" in annex "CY - 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.

In total, 10 people (9 enumerators and 1 Statistics Officer) were involved in CVTS 6. The main tasks undertaken to produce the CVTS 6 results were: preparation for the survey, data collection, processing of data, validation/consistency checks of micro-data and compilation of the Control Table. 

A data revision policy is in place at CYSTAT. It is published on CYSTAT’s website, at the following link: https://www.cystat.gov.cy/en/StaticPage?id=1072

CYSTAT also publishes a list of scheduled revisions (regular or major revisions).

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

CVTS 6 is a mandatory, stand-alone survey, conducted every 5 years.

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

Every 5 years.

The questionnaire was designed according to the instructions of the CVTS 6 manual.

The primary data collection mode was CAWI (Computer Assisted Web Interview), i.e. the questionnaires were completed by the enterprises. CAPI and CATI were used for a few enterprises, as they preferred to provide the data over the phone or at a face-to-face interview. 

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

Since data were collected using the computer assisted (CAWI) module of Blaise, there were automatic checks during collection. Data were exported to a csv file and imported in SPSS for further checks and validation. Data values which did not belong to the acceptable range specified in the CVTS 6 manual were further investigated and corrected. 

Not applicable.

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

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

No comment.