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.
Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union
1.2. Contact organisation unit
Unit F3: Labour market and lifelong learning
1.3. Contact name
Restricted from publication
1.4. Contact person function
Restricted from publication
1.5. Contact mail address
5, Rue Alphonse Weicker L-2721 Luxembourg
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
12 October 2021
2.2. Metadata last posted
12 October 2021
2.3. Metadata last update
12 October 2021
3.1. Data description
The Structure of Earnings Survey (SES) is a 4-yearly survey that provides EU-wide harmonised structural data on gross earnings, hours paid and annual days of paid holiday leave, which are collected under Council Regulation (EC) No 530/1999 concerning structural statistics on earnings and on labour costs, and Commission Regulation (EC) No 1738/2005 amending Regulation (EC) No 1916/2000 as regards the definition and transmission of information on the structure of earnings. This large data collection represents a reach data source for policy-making and research purposes.
The SES provides detailed and comparable information on relationships between the level of hourly, monthly and annual remuneration, personal characteristics of employees (sex, age, occupation, length of service, highest educational level attained, etc.) and their employer (economic activity, size and economic control of the enterprise).
Regional data is also available.
3.2. Classification system
The following international classifications are used:
G3: Group 3: Tertiary education (up to 4 years) (5 Short-cycle tertiary; 6 Bachelor or equivalent);
G4: Group 4: Tertiary education (more than 4 years) (7 Master or equivalent; 8 Doctoral or equivalent).
for the regional breakdown: Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) reference year 2016 - for the EU Member States; and Statistical Regions for Candidate countries and EFTA countries, by country (version 2016) - for EFTA and candidate countries; collected and published at NUTS-1 level and country level.
3.3. Coverage - sector
The SES covers enterprises / local units with at least 10 employees and all economic activities defined in NACE Rev. 2 sections B to N and P to S.
The transmission of data covering small enterprises (below 10 employees) and enterprises belonging to NACE Rev. 2 section O is optional.
3.4. Statistical concepts and definitions
Employees are all persons who have a direct employment contract with the enterprise or local unit and receive remuneration, irrespective of the type of work performed, the number of hours worked (full or part-time), and the duration of the contract (fixed or indefinite).
Mean annual gross earnings also cover all 'non-standard payments', i.e. payments not occurring in each pay period, such as 13th or 14th-month payments, holiday bonuses, quarterly or annual company bonuses, and annual payments in kind.
Mean monthly gross earnings in the reference month cover remuneration in cash paid before any tax deductions and social security contributions payable by wage earners and retained by the employer, and are restricted to gross earnings which are paid in each pay period during the reference month.
Mean hourly gross earnings are defined as gross earnings in the reference month divided by the number of hours paid during the same period.
The number of hours paid includes all normal and overtime hours worked and remunerated by the employer during the reference month. Hours not worked but nevertheless paid are counted as 'paid hours' (e.g. for annual leave, public holidays, paid sick leave, paid vocational training, paid special leave, etc.).
The compilation of structural statistics on earnings is based on local units and/ or enterprises, as defined in Council Regulation (EEC) No 696/93, and provides information on employees in enterprises with 10 or more employees classified by size and economic activity. Information for employees in enterprises with fewer than 10 employees is optional.
The statistics cover all activities defined in NACE Rev. 2 sections B to S (excluding O) for enterprises with at least 10 employees.
3.6. Statistical population
The SES 2018 statistics refer to enterprises with at least 10 employees in the areas of economic activities defined by NACE Rev. 2 sections B to S excluding O.
The inclusion of NACE section O is optional, as well as the inclusion of enterprises with less than 10 employees.
3.7. Reference area
The data cover the EU-Member States, EFTA, and candidate countries.
EU/ EA aggregates are available for EU27 (EU27_2020 European Union - 27 countries (from 2020); EU27_2007 European Union - 27 countries (2007-2013)) , EU28, EA19, EA18 and EA17.
3.8. Coverage - Time
The reference year is equal to the calendar year (2018).
The reference month is October for the majority of the countries. The choice of another month is accepted as long as the month is justified as being representative; for details please consult national quality reports
3.9. Base period
Not applicable.
Euro (EUR), Purchasing Power Standard (PPS), Percentage (%), and an absolute number of persons.
see 3.8
6.1. Institutional Mandate - legal acts and other agreements
The participating countries send data collected in the four-yearly Structure of Earnings Survey to Eurostat according to:
Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics (recital 24 and Article 20(4)) of 11 March 2009 (OJ L 87, p. 164), stipulates the need to establish common principles and guidelines ensuring the confidentiality of data used for the production of European statistics and the access to those confidential data with due account for technical developments and the requirements of users in a democratic society.
7.2. Confidentiality - data treatment
In the SES, information about individual entities (employees and enterprises) is collected. The safety of these microdata has to be guaranteed to make sure that individual entities cannot be recognised through inspection of released data. The goal of disclosure control is to disseminate statistical information in such a way that individual information is sufficiently protected against recognition of the subjects to which it refers, while at the same time providing as much information as possible.
Only tabular data have therefore been published. In order to limit the disclosure risk of these tables the following measures have been applied:
Region: restricted to the national level; only a limited number of indicators are published at NUTS-1 level - mean hourly earnings, mean annual earnings,
Economic activity: restricted to NACE Rev. 2, one digit level;
Size of the enterprise: published in size classes of employee numbers; 1-9, 10-49, 50-249, 250-499, 500-999 and 1000 or more
Age: restricted to 5 size classes (less than 30 years, 30-39 years, 40-49 years, 50-59 years, 60+ years);
Occupation published at ISCO-08, one digit level.
The following two primary confidentiality rules are applied to SES data:
Minimum frequency rule;
Dominance rule.
As additional protection of the data from recalculation secondary confidentiality rule is also applied.
8.1. Release calendar
There is no fixed release calendar of SES data.
The data is sent to Eurostat 18 months after the end of the reference period and the country data is disseminated in Eurobase datasets approximately 20 months after the reference period.
8.2. Release calendar access
Not applicable.
8.3. Release policy - user access
In line with the Community legal framework and the European Statistics Code of Practice Eurostat disseminates European statistics on Eurostat's website (see item 10 - 'Accessibility and clarity') respecting professional independence and in an objective, the professional and transparent manner in which all users are treated equitably. The detailed arrangements are governed by the Eurostat protocol on impartial access to Eurostat data for users.
Four-yearly.
10.1. Dissemination format - News release
According to internal Eurostats' dissemination strategy News Releases for data that are not the principal European economic indicators (PEEI) are no longer disseminated (since 2020).
News Releases for non-PEEI data are now replaced by News items (available in the 'What's new?' section of Eurostat's web page).
The following News Items based on SES 2018 data were published:
For details on how to access microdata please consult the dedicated web page on the following link: Access to SES microdata.
10.5. Dissemination format - other
Not applicable.
10.6. Documentation on methodology
Please consult Implementing arrangements for SES 2018 in the annex of this metadata file.
10.7. Quality management - documentation
All countries who submit this data to Eurostat are also asked by EU regulation to send a quality report by the end of 2020.
National quality reports are published once validated. A synthesis of quality reports will be released in the annex of this metadata file.
11.1. Quality assurance
According to Regulation (EC) 530/1999 national authorities shall ensure that the results reflect the true situation of the total population of units with a sufficient degree of representativity. National authorities are therefore obliged to provide a Quality Report containing all relevant information to enable the quality of the statistics to be evaluated.
For more details please refer to national quality reports.
11.2. Quality management - assessment
Upon transmission to Eurostat, SES microdata are checked for completeness and consistency.
12.1. Relevance - User Needs
Among others, the most important and frequent users of SES are mainly; research centers, universities, and students, the media, social partners and trade unions, private companies, national public institutions as well as international institutions. The large sample size of the SES makes it a unique source of information in which individual earnings can be linked with the characteristics of individual employees (sex, age, education level etc.) as well as to the characteristics of the enterprise they work for (economic sector, size of the enterprise, location etc.).
12.2. Relevance - User Satisfaction
The SES tables published on Eurostat’s website are considered to be well followed by our users.
Datasets providing information on earnings by sex, economic activity, and collective pay agreement are the most looked for, with information on earnings by level of education and geographic location to a lower extent.
12.3. Completeness
Refer to the national quality reports.
13.1. Accuracy - overall
In the majority of the countries, a two-stage stratified sample technique is adopted; first, a random sample of enterprises / local units, followed by a sample of employees within the selected enterprise / local unit.
For further details, refer to the national quality reports.
13.2. Sampling error
Please consult the national quality reports.
13.3. Non-sampling error
Please consult the national quality reports.
14.1. Timeliness
Please consult the national quality reports.
14.2. Punctuality
Please consult the national quality reports.
Coherence of statistics is the extent to which they can be reliably combined in different ways and for various uses. It is, however, generally easier to identify cases of incoherence than to prove coherence.
15.1. Comparability - geographical
Comparability of the SES data across national borders may be affected by the use of different observation units and definitions, methods or classification schemes, i.e. by deviations between national and community concepts. Geographic comparability may also be affected by new regional classification (NUTS).
For the info on geographical comparability, refer to the national quality reports.
15.2. Comparability - over time
Comparability over time may be affected by new definitions and classifications used in coding the SES data (NACE, NUTS, ISCED, ISCO).
In the case of hourly earnings, which in most countries are derived from the monthly earnings divided by the total hours actually paid in the reference month (October), comparability over time may be distorted due to changes in the number of working days in the reference month for the reference year.
For an overview on comparability over time, refer to the national quality reports.
They are normally not revised except in exceptional cases where a country has detected an error and submitted the correction to Eurostat. All thus reported errors (once validated) result in corrections of the disseminated data as soon as the correct data have been validated.
18.1. Source data
The data collection for the Structure of Earnings Survey can be obtained from 'tailor-made' questionnaires, existing surveys, administrative data or a combination of such sources, which provide the equivalent information. While accepting a degree of flexibility in the means employed for collecting the survey data, the information obtained must be of acceptable quality and be comparable between European countries.
18.2. Frequency of data collection
Four-yearly.
18.3. Data collection
The national surveys are generally conducted on the basis of a two-stage random sampling approach of enterprises or local units (first stage) and employees (second stage).
18.4. Data validation
Data validation consists of global checks and plausibility checks. Global checks are necessary to ensure that complete data is received for microdata records. For each country, all microdata records should contain data for all mandatory variables. Missing mandatory data or codes are not accepted. Concerning optional variables, each country decides which of these it is able to supply. Furthermore, plausibility checks on all variables were done to ensure that the data are reasonable and consistent with other variables. Possible deviations are reported by countries in their national Quality Report transmitted to Eurostat. Further details on the plausibility checks implemented by Eurostat are provided in the implementing arrangements document which is approved and sent to all countries prior to each round (Validation level 2), see the attached document in the annex.
18.5. Data compilation
EU aggregates are compiled, with the number of employees per country being the weighting factor for each individual country.
The Structure of Earnings Survey (SES) is a 4-yearly survey that provides EU-wide harmonised structural data on gross earnings, hours paid and annual days of paid holiday leave, which are collected under Council Regulation (EC) No 530/1999 concerning structural statistics on earnings and on labour costs, and Commission Regulation (EC) No 1738/2005 amending Regulation (EC) No 1916/2000 as regards the definition and transmission of information on the structure of earnings. This large data collection represents a reach data source for policy-making and research purposes.
The SES provides detailed and comparable information on relationships between the level of hourly, monthly and annual remuneration, personal characteristics of employees (sex, age, occupation, length of service, highest educational level attained, etc.) and their employer (economic activity, size and economic control of the enterprise).
Regional data is also available.
12 October 2021
Employees are all persons who have a direct employment contract with the enterprise or local unit and receive remuneration, irrespective of the type of work performed, the number of hours worked (full or part-time), and the duration of the contract (fixed or indefinite).
Mean annual gross earnings also cover all 'non-standard payments', i.e. payments not occurring in each pay period, such as 13th or 14th-month payments, holiday bonuses, quarterly or annual company bonuses, and annual payments in kind.
Mean monthly gross earnings in the reference month cover remuneration in cash paid before any tax deductions and social security contributions payable by wage earners and retained by the employer, and are restricted to gross earnings which are paid in each pay period during the reference month.
Mean hourly gross earnings are defined as gross earnings in the reference month divided by the number of hours paid during the same period.
The number of hours paid includes all normal and overtime hours worked and remunerated by the employer during the reference month. Hours not worked but nevertheless paid are counted as 'paid hours' (e.g. for annual leave, public holidays, paid sick leave, paid vocational training, paid special leave, etc.).
The compilation of structural statistics on earnings is based on local units and/ or enterprises, as defined in Council Regulation (EEC) No 696/93, and provides information on employees in enterprises with 10 or more employees classified by size and economic activity. Information for employees in enterprises with fewer than 10 employees is optional.
The statistics cover all activities defined in NACE Rev. 2 sections B to S (excluding O) for enterprises with at least 10 employees.
The SES 2018 statistics refer to enterprises with at least 10 employees in the areas of economic activities defined by NACE Rev. 2 sections B to S excluding O.
The inclusion of NACE section O is optional, as well as the inclusion of enterprises with less than 10 employees.
The data cover the EU-Member States, EFTA, and candidate countries.
EU/ EA aggregates are available for EU27 (EU27_2020 European Union - 27 countries (from 2020); EU27_2007 European Union - 27 countries (2007-2013)) , EU28, EA19, EA18 and EA17.
see 3.8
In the majority of the countries, a two-stage stratified sample technique is adopted; first, a random sample of enterprises / local units, followed by a sample of employees within the selected enterprise / local unit.
For further details, refer to the national quality reports.
Euro (EUR), Purchasing Power Standard (PPS), Percentage (%), and an absolute number of persons.
EU aggregates are compiled, with the number of employees per country being the weighting factor for each individual country.
The data collection for the Structure of Earnings Survey can be obtained from 'tailor-made' questionnaires, existing surveys, administrative data or a combination of such sources, which provide the equivalent information. While accepting a degree of flexibility in the means employed for collecting the survey data, the information obtained must be of acceptable quality and be comparable between European countries.
Four-yearly.
Please consult the national quality reports.
Comparability of the SES data across national borders may be affected by the use of different observation units and definitions, methods or classification schemes, i.e. by deviations between national and community concepts. Geographic comparability may also be affected by new regional classification (NUTS).
For the info on geographical comparability, refer to the national quality reports.
Comparability over time may be affected by new definitions and classifications used in coding the SES data (NACE, NUTS, ISCED, ISCO).
In the case of hourly earnings, which in most countries are derived from the monthly earnings divided by the total hours actually paid in the reference month (October), comparability over time may be distorted due to changes in the number of working days in the reference month for the reference year.
For an overview on comparability over time, refer to the national quality reports.
