Statistics Sweden 

Social statistics and analysis

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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.

Enterprises in the sample frame: 44 421.

There can be a lag of 1 month to one year for number of employees in the sample frame which creates coverage problems when the target population is created from the sample frame based on number of employees in the sample frame.

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

All parts of Sweden are included.

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 

There is an obligation to provide information for this survey under the Official Statistics Act (2001:99). Rules on the obligation to provide information are also contained in the Official Statistics Ordinance (2001:100) and Statistics Sweden regulations (SCB-FS 2021:3).

Not applicable.

If a researcher wants access to micro data regarding CVTS a confidentiality review together with disclosure controls will be made before the researcher can get access to data.

P% rule or dominance rule are often used for determining if there exists disclosure risks for published results in tables based on enterprise surveys at Statistics Sweden. These rules will also be applied for CVTS 6. Exactly how this will be done will be decided during 2023.

We have not decided an official date but national results are tentatively planned to be published in June 2023. When decided, it will be published in the link below (in 8.2).

https://www.scb.se/hitta-statistik/statistik-efter-amne/utbildning-och-forskning/befolkningens-utbildning/personalutbildning-i-foretagen/

Results will be published on our website. See link in 8.2.

Main users, and those who have shown interest, will be notified via e-mail when the results are published.

Every 5 years.

The results are tentatively planned to be published nationally in June 2023.

The results are tentatively planned to be published nationally in June 2023. There are no results from CVTS 6 available yet in Sweden.

The results are tentatively planned to be published nationally in June 2023. There are no results from CVTS 6 available yet in Sweden.

Not applicable.

Micro-data will probably not be disseminated.

No other data dissemination.

Not applicable.

National reports on the methodology will be available in June/July 2023.

Not applicable.

National reports on the methodology will be available in June/July 2023.

The web questionnaire data (entered by respondents themselves) was code-controlled by a combination of automatic, programmed checks and by review of the data by SCB staff. The staff made additions/changes/clarifications to the received data when necessary.

Post-coding was done by staff/data manager and by the project manager. The process was as follows: The received answers are checked automatically by program rules in the web-questionnaire system. In CVTS 6 more controls were added directly in the self-administered web-questionnaire. Inconsistent or item non-response were noticed for the respondent who had to confirm the answer or leave a comment.

When finally submitted, a received response is 'flagged' if there still is a problem with consistency or partial non-response. The data manager then receives a list of flagged responses and reviews the problem data. The data manager then post-codes using existing information, and when necessary, either telephones or sends an e-mail to the enterprise and post-codes using complementary information received. Once the data collection period is closed, the project manager reviews the data and post-codes according to the rules in the CVTS 6 manual.

The quality of the survey improved in CVTS 5 (2015) due to the implementation of partial mandatory responding of the core and key variables. There were however still quality problems regarding item-nonresponse for voluntary variables in CVTS 5. For the CVTS 6 the whole questionnaire was made mandatory which reduced the total item non-response.

The variables concerning CVT course hours and CVT course costs have been very difficult for the enterprises to respond to. The majority of the enterprises were flagged for errors in those variables during the editing process. During correspondence with the enterprises, the enterprises told us that they don't have these kind of data in their account systems and that they therefore had to make estimations of the hours and the costs. Earlier comparisons with results from CVTS 5 and the Adult Education Survey (AES), showed that the course hours per course participant seems to be underestimated which probably means that the course costs per participant also are underestimated. It would be good if the number of questions in CVTS were less in the future especially regarding CVT strategies, outcome and difficulties. The burden on the enterprises and the quality in the results have to be taken into account even if the results are important for policy makers and other users. If the quality in the results are not sufficient, the users will not be able to draw conclusions based on the results anyway.

The ministry of education has previously shown primarily interest in the results concerning CVT hours and CVT costs from CVTS 6.

We haven't performed a user evaluation survey for results from CVTS. The results from CVTS 6 are tentatively planned to be published in June 2023 and at that time also presented for main users. It is therefore too early to comment about the use of the results.

The survey covers all NACE sectors and enterprise size groups which are required.

Not applicable.

See 11.2 on the assessment of the quality.

Stratified cluster sampling. Estimation performed using standard HT estimator given the sampling design. No auxiliary information has been used in the estimation. Calculation of the coefficient of variation was based on non-imputed data.

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

See items 13.3.1 - 13.3.5.

Swedish 'Företagsregister' or Business Register. The Business Register contains information on all of the national (countries) enterprises. It is updated with information from the tax authorities (weekly), Sweden Adress Change AB (bi-weekly), Statistics Sweden's business census (annually in November) and feedback from external users (continuously). There can be a lag of 1 month to one year for number of employees. This means that the presence of over- or undercoverage in this survey is similar to other business surveys at Statistics Sweden. Overcoverage has probably been unusually high due to the pandemic. The threshold for the number of employees in the sampling frame is based on an average taking into account the situation throughout the reference year.

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

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

Not applicable.

Measurement errors exist in questions about number of CVT hours and CVT costs. Previous comparisons between CVTS estimates and estimates from the Adult Education Survey (AES) have shown that training hours per training participant are probably underestimated. According to the automatic checks of data, the majority of enterprises had errors in the variables about CVT hours and CVT costs. Data managers mentioned that they in many cases had to estimate those figures since they don't have that kind of data in their account systems (especially big enterprises).

In CVTS 6 the item non-response is lower due to questions that were voluntary in 2015 but were made mandatory in CVTS 6. Still high item non-response especially in variables regarding CVT course costs. We had two web reminders and one telephone reminder to mainly big enterprises, but also medium big enterprises.

Standard reweighting within strata.

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

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

The processing and editing system is described in section 11.1. We have done checks at the macro level concerning that the results are reasonable and consistent with previous results in CVTS.

No cut-off sampling nor any particular model based estimation has been used.

30 months (June 2023)

30 months (June 2023)

30 months (June 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 "SE - QR tables CVTS 2020 (excel)".

Not applicable.

No deviations regarding concepts and definitions.

For deviations regarding variables and questions, see table 15.1 "Comparability - geographical" in annex "SE - QR tables CVTS 2020 (excel)".

Some additional variables/information related to COVID-19 were collected, see also table 15.1.

Not applicable.

In CVTS 5 only key and core variables together with some additional variables were mandatory for the enterprises. In CVTS 6 the whole questionnaire was mandatory.

Total labour costs of persons employed (variable A5) is in CVTS 6 almost entirely from administrative data. In CVTS 5 only non-response values were replaced with administrative data. In both CVTS 5 and CVTS 6 it is noted that the response from respondents is underestimated compared to administrative data. This has an impact in comparability with previous result: the estimates based on variable A5 in CVTS 6 are higher, e.g. "Labour costs of participants of CVT courses per person employed in enterprises providing CVT courses".

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

Not applicable.

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

Respondent burden (self-estimated by respondent) by enterprise size as of December 31, 2020:

• 10 - 49 persons employed: 110 minutes
• 50 - 249 persons employed: 115 minutes
• 250 and more persons employed: 155 minutes

Administrative and other survey sources were used to the fullest extent possible.

The main purpose to this was to limit reporting burden on individual respondents to the extent possible by minimizing the overlap with other surveys.

In CVTS 5 we had to contact a high proportion of enterprises due to inconsistency in answer or item non-response. We tried to eliminate that burden both for respondents and staff members in SCB by adding more controls in the web-questionnaire and clarifying questions that were problematic in CVTS 5. There were still a lot of re-contacts that had to be made in CVTS 6.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

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

Every 5 years.

The questionnaire in Swedish is available as annex. The English questionnaire is available in the CVTS 6 manual. A national documentation of methodology and quality will be published in June/July 2023.

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

Respondents receive a letter and a web link via mail. They typed in the link and entered data themselves. Non-responses were sent reminder letters via mail, including a repeat of the web link. This led to additional data entered by respondents themselves. The reminder letter procedure was repeated once. Telephone reminders were made, primarily targeting at medium and big enterprises which led to additional data entered by respondents. Telephone calls and e-mail to enterprises were also made to complement the already-received data with any additional needed data or clarifications.

The web questionnaire data (entered by respondents themselves) was code-controlled by a combination of automatic, programmed checks and by review of the data by SCB staff. SCB staff made additions/changes/clarifications to the received data when necessary.

The extent of imputed variables and the imputation rates are mentioned in 18.5.1. Design weights are constructed by dividing the number of enterprises in the sampling frame per stratum by the corresponding number of selected enterprises. Adjustment for non-response is done within sampling strata where responding enterprises are assumed to be approximately representative of those selected. No additional calibration of the weights is applied. From the sampling frame enterprises are selected but responding units can be subunits for example a legal unit.

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

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

No further comments.