STATEC (Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques - Luxembourg).

Unit: Labour market and education

13 Rue Erasme, 1468 Luxembourg

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.

NACE Rev. 2 sectors B-S except O, P and Q.

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 (legal unit).

All enterprises with 10 or more persons employed in the covered sectors (see 3.3).

Total population: 5 459 enterprises

Gross sample drawn: 1 613 enterprises

Respondents in final file transmitted to Eurostat (net sample): 1 206 enterprises

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

Luxembourg (country) (LU0).

1994, 2000, 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.

Not available.

No data shall be published that would allow the identification of a specific enterprise.

No fixed release calendar

Publication "Regards" published October 2022

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Every 5 years.

News releases linked to CVTS data will be made available on https://statistiques.public.lu/en.html

Publications linked to CVTS data will be made available on https://statistiques.public.lu/en/publications.html

Data tables linked to CVTS data will be made available on https://statistiques.public.lu/en/themes.html

Not applicable.

Microdata are not disseminated.

None.

Not applicable.

Not available.

Not applicable.

Not available.

The CVTS has been conducted using a web questionnaire, so the respondent (in most cases the head of human resources of the enterprise) had to fill in the questionnaire on his own.

In order to guarantee the quality of the answers provided,

• clear definitions and examples had been provided in the online questionnaire and the accompanying glossary;
• collaborators of the national statistical office answered the questions of the respondents on the phone and by mail;
• answers were crosschecked for inconsistencies and the enterprises were re-contacted in order to correct data on a case-by-case basis.

For most variables, quality should be good.

Quality is poorer on those variables mentioned under "Weaknesses".

Weaknesses:

• cost variables
• contributions paid and subsidies received

Strong points:

• in general: qualitative variables

There are no measures available at national level to analyse user needs.

There are no measures available at national level to analyse user satisfaction.

No deviation.

The final dataset does cover all NACE sectors, enterprise size groups and variables as requested in the CVTS legislation.

Overall quality of the data should be good, as the results compare well to other sources and earlier CVT surveys.

Response rate dropped to 76% (from 89% in 2015) due to COVID-19. A larger than usual sample had been drawn to counter this expected drop in response rate.

Sampling method:

The sampling method followed closely the rules set out in the CVTS 6 manual (section 4.3.). For each of the defined stratum cells, the sample size was determined according to the formula presented in section 4.3.5. of the CVTS 6 manual.

Estimation /grossing-up procedures:

Weight for each responding enterprise in stratum h = Number of enterprises in the population in stratum h / Number of responding enterprises in stratum h.

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

See the following subsections.

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

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

Not applicable.

Measurement errors might have occurred because enterprises could not provide the data corresponding to the exact definition of the concepts we asked for. So they had to estimate some variables based on the information they had:

• some enterprises had difficulties to communicate an overall number of participants, as each person employed should only be counted once per year. Often, enterprises only know the number of participants in each activity, without knowing which person participated in how many activities during a year;
• many enterprises could only provide a global cost for CVT and had to estimate the breakdown of CVT costs into categories;
• data on contributions paid and subsidies received may lack consistency (in some cases, they refer to training activities that took place in the year before for which payments were made in the survey year, in other cases, they are estimates for sums not yet received/payed for activities that took place in the survey year).

Collaborators in the National Statistical Institute provided guidelines on these issues to respondents on phone and by mail when asked for, on a case to case basis.

See the following subsections.

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

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

Data was collected from the enterprises through a web-based questionnaire including data filters and cross-checks in order to minimize incoherence in data. Most questions had to be answered on a mandatory basis.

Data was directly imported from the web-questionnaire to the final database minimizing errors due to coding and editing.

A limited number of imputations had to be done in order to complete data for two key variables: C3tot (Paid working time spent on all CVT courses) (2%) and C7sub (CVT course costs sub-total) (5%).

Other variables with limited imputation (1%) are : C1tot, C2m and C2f.

Not applicable.

Reference year is the calendar year 2020.

4th quarter 2022

4th quarter 2022

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

Not applicable.

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

Additional variables related to COVID-19 were collected according to Eurostat guidelines on optional variables from 8 December 2020.

Not applicable.

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

Not applicable.

See table 15.3 "Coherence - cross-domain" in annex "LU - 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.

Not available.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

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

Every 5 years.

Web survey. See details in table 18.1 "Source data and data collection" in annex "LU - QR tables CVTS 2020 (excel)".

Data has been submitted through a web questionnaire. The questionnaire contained precise descriptions of each variable, internal controls on most variables and coherence control between different variables, allowing to minimize the errors. Received data was furthermore checked for consistency within the dataset as well as in comparison to data from administrative sources.

Not applicable.

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

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Quality:

Overall quality of the data seems good, as the results compare well to other sources and earlier CVT surveys.

Weaknesses:

• probably due to COVID-19, the overall response rate dropped significantly, but this had been foreseen and a larger sample had been drawn;
• due to the special situation with COVID-19, structural changes in CVTS observed in Reference Year 2020 cannot be attributed with certainty to the pandemic, as there is no comparable data available for 2019;
• many enterprises still have difficulties with the breakdown of CVT costs into categories;
• data on contributions paid and subsidies received lack consistency (in some cases, they refer to training activities that took place in 2019 for which payments were made in 2020, in other cases, they are estimates for sums not yet received/payed for activities that took place in 2020). This problem might be even more pronounced due to the reduction in CVTS activities in 2020 due to COVID-19;
• many enterprises have difficulties to communicate an overall number of participants, as each person employed should only be counted once. Often, enterprises only know the number of participants in each activity, without knowing which person participated in how many activities during a year.

Strong points:

• in general: qualitative variables.