Statec Luxembourg

Labour Market and Education (SOC2)

13 Rue Erasme, 1468 Luxembourg

The Structure of earnings survey (SES) is conducted every four years in the Member States of the European Union (EU) and provides comparable information at EU level on relationships between the level of earnings, individual characteristics of employees (sex, age, occupation, length of service, educational level) and their employer (economic activity, size of the enterprise, etc.). 

• for economic activities: Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community, Rev. 2 (2008) (NACE)
• for occupation: International Standard Classification of Occupations 2008 (ISCO-08) – pages 3-34
• for education: International Standard Classification of Education 2011 (ISCED 2011) - Section 9. (pages 71-72)
• for regions: Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics, by regional level, version 2013 (NUTS)

NACE Rev.2 sectors B-S

All concepts and definitions follow the Commission Regulation (EC) No 1738/2005 of 21 October 2005 amending Regulation (EC) No 1916/2000 as regards the definition and transmission of information on the structure of earnings.

The SES refers to local units belonging to enterprises with at least 10 employees in the areas of economic activities defined by NACE Rev. 2 sections B to S excluding O. For section O and public P, the data cover all employees occupied by the central government but exclude local public bodies.

The SES refers to local units belonging to enterprises with at least 10 employees in the areas of economic activities defined by NACE Rev. 2 sections B to S excluding O. For section O and public P, the data cover all employees occupied by the central government but exclude local public bodies.

Luxembourg (whole country).

The reference month for the Structure of Earnings Survey is October 2018, reference year is 2018. 

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The Luxembourg SES makes use of three different sources:

• National register of enterprises (used to draw the enterprise sample)
• Social Security records (IGSS) (used to draw the employee sample and provides most variables on working hours and remunerations)
• The Survey (covering only those variables that could not be provided by social security records (on the enterprise level : form of control, coverage by a collective pay agreement ; on the employee level : mainly ISCO and ISCED codes, PT/FT, special payment for shift work)

every 4 years

The SES 2018 was conducted based on a two-stage sampling approach.

In the first stage, a stratified random sample of local units is drawn, by size class (10-49 employees : sample rate = 50% ; 50-249 : sample rate = 75% ; 250 or more employees : sample rate = 100%)

In the second stage, a random sample of employees is drawn for each local unit in the sample (10-19 employees : sample rate = 30% ; 20-29 employees : sample rate = 20% ; 30 or more employees : sample rate = 10%, with a maximum of 150 employees).

For the public sector (section O and the public education part of section P), full coverage has been provided by the central government (does not cover local bodies).

The data is validated through the implementation of validation rules provided in Eurostat's Implementing arrangements for SES 2018.

Not appplicable.

Not appplicable.

Results of the SES are checked internally before transmission and ex post by Eurostat using global checks and plausibility checks.

Microdata are checked for completeness and consistency.

The Structure of earnings survey (SES) provides a rather complete picture of wages, hours worked, and the personal characteristics of workers. As such, it is a unique source in Luxembourg. Alternative sources are less complete or less reliable. The social security records provide information on wages and hours worked. These records also provide some information on the workers’ characteristics, but two crucial items are missing: the level of education and the occupation. There is also information on wages in the Labour Force Surveys (LFS) and in EU-SILC. These surveys provide a wealth of information on the workers’ personal backgrounds. Unfortunately, the information on wages is less reliable. Indeed, the wages are self-declared by the workers and are missing in several cases. Furthermore, there is no precise and reliable information on the number of hours worked. Another drawback of the two latter sources is that they exclude the workers that work in Luxembourg but live outside the country. These cross-border workers make up 44% of Luxembourg’s total wage employment. The SES covers 87% of Luxembourg’s total wage employment, much more than the LFS.

For the 2014 SES, there has been a major change in the survey methodology. Most variables have been drawn from social security records. Only those variables that are missing in these records (or are of questionable quality) have been asked directly to the enterprises using a reduced survey questionnaire. This method has also been used for the SES 2018.

Summary of national core users

The most important national core user is STATEC. The other national core users include ministries, administrations, foreign embassies, researchers, media, employers’ federations, trade unions, companies from the private sector, as well as students from high schools and universities.

Description of their main needs including an assessment of their level of satisfaction with the data offered

The users are mainly interested in breakdowns of wages along with several variables. The most popular variables are sector, occupation, and educational level. Whereas most of the users are fine with tabular analyses, the researchers are also interested in direct access to the microdata.

There is no systematic and formal assessment of the users’ satisfaction. Nevertheless, the small size of the national user community enables STATEC to have direct contact with the users. As a result, STATEC can be very responsive to the users’ needs. The informal feedback suggests that the users’ needs are generally satisfied.

all mandatory variables according to Commission Regulation (EC) No 1738/2005 are collected and transmitted to Eurostat

see 5.3.

see the following sections

This section documents the sampling errors of the Structure of Earnings Survey 2018.

The tables in the annex show the coefficient of variation for the average monthly earnings and average hourly earnings, broken down by the characteristics of the workers and the enterprises they are working in.

This section documents the non-sampling errors of the Structure of Earnings Survey 2018.

No problem of under-coverage is known. However, there has been some over-coverage, i.e. the sample included units that were out of scope. The reasons for this over-coverage stem from a discrepancy between the administrative files used for the sampling and the real world, and can be split into 3 categories:

1. The local unit does not exist. The reasons for this non-existence can be bankruptcy, merger, liquidation or discontinuance of business. Some enterprises were found to be unknown and could not be reached.
2. The local unit was registered in Luxembourg but did in fact have no employees in the country, but only in the border regions outside of the country.
3. Other reasons, of which mainly double registration.

The table below gives an estimate of the over-coverage rate with respect to the initial sample. Furthermore, the table distinguishes the above-mentioned causes for over-coverage.

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Due to the new methodology introduced for the 2014 wave, there have been few inconsistencies between variables, as most variables had been drawn from social security registers.

The main issues concerned:

-          Variable B271 (Share of a full-timer’s normal hours), where the values filled in by the enterprises in the questionnaire were inconsistent with the number of hours paid in the reference month drawn from social security.

-          Variable B422 (Special payments for shift work), where the values filled in by the enterprises in the questionnaire were inconsistent with the overall special payments in the reference month drawn from social security

The inconsistencies on these variables were corrected via direct follow-up with the local units.

The variable on Annual Holiday Leave (B33) had to be imputed based on legal minima and minima set by (known) collective agreements. As a result, the values of the variable B33 are likely to be underestimated.

In the public sector (O and the public part of P), variable B25 "Highest successfully completed level of education" is based on the diploma a person must normally have to access the post in question. Actual diplomas held by the person might in some cases be higher (and in rare cases also lower) than the level reported, but this information is not available in the administrative data.

Data for sector O covers all of NACE 84 subdivisions except 84.112 Administrations of local bodies (communes), 84.250 Fire service activities, and 84.3 Compulsory social security activities.

The table below shows the unit response rate. This rate is defined as follows:

The “Ineligible Units” are those mentioned in the section about Coverage errors.

The “Exploitable Units” are those for which there was a response and who have passed the quality and plausibility checks.

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None

There has been no imputation of missing values.

Most of the variables were drawn from social security where very little to no data were missing. For those variables collected by online questionnaire, all answers were made compulsory. In addition, an extensive follow-up allowed reducing the problems of item non-response and missing values to a minimum.

Some employees (0.4%), for which all or some important variables were missing or incoherent were dropped entirely.

Does not apply.

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The final data have been available on the 29^th of June 2020. The first results are published in September 2020.

see 7.2

see 7.2

The table below shows the dates at which the questionnaire and the recalls were dispatched, as well as the deadlines that have been imposed.

The fieldwork started on the 17^th of June 2019. The fieldwork stopped on the 13th of December 2019, the day where the last questionnaire was received and validated.

The data processing started on the 18^th of June 2019, the day where the first questionnaires were received. The data processing ended on the 29^th of June 2020, by transmitting the data to Eurostat.

The results are published by STATEC starting in September 2020.

See 7.2

In Luxembourg, the European concepts on the definition of statistical units, populations, reference times, classifications and definitions of variables have been used.

not applicable

Coverage

The Structure of Earnings Surveys of 1995, 2002, and 2006 cover sections C to K of the NACE rev.1 classification. In 2006, the sections M, N, and O have been added. In 2010, the NACE rev2 classification is used. The sections B to N and P to S have been covered. In 2014, as in 2010, there has been an experimental coverage of NACE section O (public administration) with the collection of data from the central governmental administration based on a small sample.

In 2018, full data for O and public P have been available and transmitted.

For section P (Education), there is a break in series as section P covered only private educational institutions up to the 2010 collection, but covers also public educational institutions since 2014.

Survey Design

The Structure of Earnings Surveys of 1995 onwards relies on a two-stage sample design. In the first stage, a sample of local units is drawn, and in the second stage, the salaried workers are sampled within these local units.

In 1995 and 2002, the local units were asked in the second stage to draw themselves a representative sample of their workers, the size of this sample being fixed by STATEC.

Since 2006, the second-stage sample was directly drawn from social security records, using simple random sampling.

see 8.2

The table in Annex compares the composition of employees as found in the Structure of Earnings Survey (SES) 2018 to those of the Labour Force Survey (LFS) of the same year.

There is however a big difference between these two surveys regarding their coverage. The LFS only covers workers living in Luxembourg. The SES covers persons working in Luxembourg, regardless if they are living in Luxembourg or not. Persons not living but working in Luxembourg make up more than 45% of the total wage employment. Moreover, the profiles of these workers are different from those of the resident workers. Hence, the table presents the results for the SES for the workers living in Luxembourg (“Residents”) and for the persons working in Luxembourg and living abroad (“Commuters”) in separate columns. Only the column “Residents” should be compared to the results of the LFS.

Non-response and measurement errors are an issue in the LFS, much more than they are in the SES. Information on the economic sector, the size of the firm, the profession and level of education are self-declared in LFS.

Regarding gender, age, citizenship, the shares of part-time and of temporary workers, the results in the SES (for residents) and the LFS are fairly consistent.

There is however a big discrepancy regarding occupations and level of education.

According to the LFS, 54% of the workers are in the ISCO-08 categories 2 (“Professionals”) and 3 (“Technicians and associate professionals”). However, these two groups only make up 36% in the SES.

Persons with at most ISCED0 to ISCED2 are, with a share of 19%, underrepresented in the LFS, as compared to the SES. On the other hand, the ISCED5 and ISCED8 categories are overrepresented by the same amount, i.e. 46% in the LFS as compared to 37% in the SES. Besides the non-response and measurement issues already mentioned, an additional problem can arise with the level of education. In the LFS the level of education is reported by the workers whereas it is reported by the employers in the SES. This might give rise to a so-called social desirability bias, a tendency that the workers declare higher levels of education than they really have. On the other hand, it is not sure whether the employers dispose of the most accurate information regarding their employees’ education. In some cases, they may have only encoded the level of education required for the job rather than the (higher) diploma a person really has obtained. In other cases, employees may have followed since their hire some extra courses which can lead to a higher level of education than that recorded by the employer.

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The table in the annex compares the variable “gross annual earnings in the reference year” from the Structure of Earning Survey (SES), to the variable “wages and salaries (D11) per employee” from the national accounts (NA). The figures presented are the overall means (including full-time and part-time employees). Some NACE sections are regrouped for confidentiality reasons.

For the whole economy, earnings from the SES are nearly identical to than those from NA (-0.3%).

On the NACE section level, some important differences remain that have to be further investigated. The biggest differences are found in section I (accommodation and food service activities), where the SES average is 13.3% below the NA average, and in Public Administration (XO), where the SES average is 11.8% higher than the NA average (the definition (scope) of Public Administration and the data source are different in NA).

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Results will be published in short thematic publications ("Regards") dispatched to all relevant media.

References for core results publications, including those with commentary in the form of text, graphs, maps, etc.

• Results are released in different publications that can be found on Luxembourg’s official statistics web site (“Portail des Statistiques du Grand-Duché de Luxembourg”)
• Tables will be published also on the “Portail des Statistiques"

http://www.statistiques.public.lu/

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A short description of the survey and a link to the relevant European legislation is published on the “Portail des statistiques”.

https://statistiques.public.lu/en/surveys/espace-enterprises/structure-earnings/index.html

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