INSEE - Business Statistics Directorate

Short-Term Activity Indices division

INSEE - Direction générale
88 avenue Verdier
CS 70058
92541 Montrouge Cedex

The indices of production in construction provide a short-term indication of changes in activity in the construction sector.

Source : The construction output index is now calculated using data on hourly volume from nominative social declarations (DSN) – a monthly reporting/administrative requirement in which employers report, for each of their employees, the time worked and the wages paid – instead of the monthly production surveys in the building and public works sector (EMBTP). An experiment was conducted over several years to validate the switch to this new source. The series have been backcast to January 1990, with the use of the DSN source since 2019 (not available or not robust enough for this purpose before).

NACE Rev. 2 Section F., CC breackdown

Activities covered : NACE Rev. 2 Section F.

The indice of production in construction measure the evolution of output (value added) in volume. All the series measure production in worked hours (taking yearly productivity into account).

Accounting conventions : Not available.

Reporting unit : Legal unit.

Observation unit(s) : Kind of activity unit (establishment-level).

Units of all size.

France

Time series cover the period back to 1990

Base (reference) year : 2015

Index.

Month.

At national level:

Law No. 51-711 of 7 June 1951 on the obligation, coordination and secrecy of statistics.

At European level:

Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European business statistics (EBS-Regulation) and its General Implementing Act (Regulation (EU) 2020/1197).

None

At the national level, Article 6 of Act No. 51-711 of 7 June 1951, as amended, on the obligation, coordination and secrecy of statistics determines what statistical secrecy is, its limits and the conditions for its application. These rules apply to surveys conducted by the official statistical service (SSP) whether or not they are mandatory. The derogations provided for in this article are governed by the Act. As it stands, the only exemptions that remain applicable are those relating to the status of public archives for surveys and censuses, which authorise the disclosure of individual information contained in the questionnaires and relating to personal and family life and, in general, to the information contained in the questionnaires. family life and, in general, to private facts and behaviour, after a period of 75 years for individuals and 25 years for legal entities. According to the Act, this communication may not be used for tax control or economic repression.

The obligations relating to statistical confidentiality also apply to administrative data that INSEE or ministerial statistical services may have access to under the terms of Article 7 bis of the aforementioned Act, as well as to private data communicated under the terms of Article 3 bis. under the terms of Article 3 bis of the Act. Generally speaking, with regard to access to public data, confidentiality obligations relating to the protection of privacy or business secrecy and the protection of personal data are guaranteed by Act (Article 1 of the Act for a Digital Republic).

At the European level, the confidentiality of statistical information is affirmed by Article 338 of the EU Treaty. < >. Statistical confidentiality is also the subject of Chapter V of Regulation 223/2009 as amended and Implementing Regulation No 557/2013 as regards access to confidential data for statistical purposes.

A Statistical Confidentiality Committee ensures that these statutory guarantees are maintained. Its powers are set out in Article 6 bis of Act No. 51-711 of 7 June 1951, as amended, on the obligation, coordination and secrecy of statistics and Chapter II of Decree No. 2009-318 of 20 March 2009 on the National Council for Statistical Information and the Statistical Confidentiality Committee. Statistical Confidentiality Committee. It is called upon to give its opinion on any question relating to statistical secrecy, and gives its opinion on requests for communication of individual data collected by means of a statistical survey or transmitted to the official statistical service, for the purpose of establishing a statistical report. for statistical purposes. Researchers can also ask the committee to give an opinion on access to various administrative data other than public statistics.

Chaired by a State Councillor, it includes representatives of the National Assembly and the Senate. The composition and operating procedures of the committee are set by decree in the Council of State.

The beneficiaries of data communications resulting from ministerial decisions taken after the opinion of the Statistical Confidentiality Committee undertake not to communicate these data to anyone.

Any breach of the provisions of this paragraph shall be punishable by the penalties provided for in Article 226-13 of the Criminal Code.

The main rules for turnover indices are : no dissemination of data if they are based on the compilation of less than 3 enterprises or if a single entreprise represents more than 85 % of the turnover of the field covered by the serie (dominance rule and p% rule).

Confidential treatment through TAU ARGUS (software designed to protect statistical tables) and confidential indices are not disseminated.

Link:

Software Tau-Argus (fr)

A monthly release calendar is produced for the four following months. It can be found on the INSEE website: https://www.insee.fr/fr/information/1405540?conjoncture=3&debut=0

On the INSEE Website :

https://www.insee.fr/fr/information/1405540?conjoncture=3&debut=0

Simultaneous release to all interested parties : Yes.

Identification of internal government access to data before release : No.

Transmission to Eurostat and further use of the statistics : The transmission to Eurostat is made using the SDMX format, the day before the national release.

Monthly.

Not available.

National paper publications : "Informations Rapides". Monthly publications for economic indicators.

The results are available in the indices and time series category of the "Services" section on insee.fr. The data can be downloaded in xlsx or csv format. They can also be retrieved via a web service, available on the api.insee.fr portal and compliant with the SDMX standard.

Not available.

Planned changes in national dissemination methods : none.

Transmissions to Eurostat using Edamis.

"Documentation on methodology" on the INSEE website:

https://www.insee.fr/en/information/5349872

https://www.insee.fr/en/statistiques/documentation/Evolutions_indice_prod_construction_2023_ENG.pdf

Not available.

Since 2005, the European Statistics Code of Practice has been the reference for assessing the quality of the output of national statistical institutes. Periodic reviews by European peers are organised to ensure that the principles of this reference framework are implemented and to ensure that each institute is committed to continuous improvement. Within this framework, INSEE has adopted a process-based approach. A range of tools, pooled within the Official Statistical Service (SSP), has been created to describe statistical production processes, analyse their strengths and weaknesses, assess the risks involved, examine their documentation (metadata) or assess a particular stage (analysis of users' needs, data validation, etc.). The diagnoses resulting from these << quality approaches >>; lead to the establishment of action plans that are regularly monitored in the context of << process reviews >>. In addition, INSEE regularly conducts satisfaction surveys on the indicators and data it produces. The results of these surveys are available on the insee.fr website.

Eurostat requirements are fulfilled and the variables used to calculate the indices are accurate and of good quality.

The Industrial production indices are meant to be used by many clients (i.e. users) including Eurostat, the official statistical service (INSEE and the SSM) and the general public (inseenauts, private or public institutions, media).

Different types of products are produced by the team on Industrial production indices:

• monthly << InfosRap >> publications;

• aggregated data files and series available on the on-line database;

• specific files responding to user needs (National Accounts, Business Cycle Analysis, Structural Surveys, SSM);

• metadata: annual quality reports sent to Eurostat and made available on insee.fr;

• weights.

This process is not subject to a specific satisfaction survey for external users but internal users are satisfied with the quality and punctuality of indices.

Eurostat’s requirements in terms of time series are fulfilled.

Statistical error and bias are small.

Not available.

Response rate : 100% (administrative data).

35 days after the end of the reference period (except for the publication on July and November, 40 days after the end of the reference period).

Deadlines are respected and data have so far always been published on time.

Methods are comparable to those of other European. They are compliant with the european regulation (EBS).

Consistency over time is ensured through the use of stable methods. In the case of methodological changes, or change of base period, past indices are backcast to ensure comparability over time.

A benchmarking with other STS data, structural data or national accounts can be carried out. In addition, national accountants use indices of production in construction as benchmark for their estimates and provide feedback on consistency with past account data.

Internal consistency is ensured through the aggregation method.

Burden: Cost for INSEE: 240 hours (excluding collection).

The same revision policy is applied to STS data released nationally and transmitted to Eurostat.

All revisions are taken into account.

Routine revisions are mostly due to available additional information, especially overdue respondents at the survey. Then SA-WDA data are also revised each month as a consequence of the new calculation of SA-WDA coefficients. These revisions are taken into account each monthly.

Major revisions are mainly due to rebasing, new weights or update of productivity factors.

No revision calendar exists.

Only the last vintage is available on the website. Users have to download monthly the data to obtain a real-time database.

Warnings are published in the national publication "Informations Rapides" and on the web site www.insee.fr when the revisions are major revisions like after rebasing or changes in methodology.

In the whole construction, the mean revision between january 2020 and december 2022 is 0.09 point for the year-on-year growth rate of the calendar adjusted serie (see Figure below).

In the whole construction, the mean absolute revision between january 2020 and december 2022 is 1.34 point for the year-on-year growth rate of the calendar adjusted serie (see Figure below).

These revisions do not include the impact of rebasing or major methodological changes.

Figure : revisions in the whole construction between january 2020 and december 2022 (36 months)

Rebasing and reference change

The 2015 rebasing implemented an important innovation, with the introduction of annually chained indices instead of fixed-weights indices.

Type of source : administrative data ("déclaration sociale nominative")

More informations : https://www.insee.fr/en/information/4195367

Monthly.

Data collection media : Enterprises transmit information from their payroll software to a single point of deposit just once a month.

This information is checked and then redistributed to the various recipient organisations.

Planned changes in data collection methodology : None.

Data are validated before they are transmitted to Eurostat.

Estimates for non-response: none, except for the last few months due to a few late declarations (< 1% of the total declarants)
Estimates for grossing-up to population levels: none
Type of index: Annual chain-linked Laspeyres indices with 2015 as reference year
Method of weighting and chaining: The weightings of the branches are based on annual raw value added at basic prices. The indices have a mean of 100 in 2015.
Planned changes in production methods: None.

The raw indices are seasonnaly and working-day adjusted (SA-WDA) using the X13 ARIMA program available in JDemetra +. The WD adjustment (trading days, leap year) and the seasonal adjustment decomposition are calculated at the 4-digit level of the NACE Rev. 2. The upper levels are obtained by aggregating the series (indirect method), in the same way as the agregation of raw data.

The Reg ARIMA calendar adjustment is used by constructing working day regressors based on the French national calendar (which takes into account working days specific to France).
Outliers (additive outliers, temporary changes, level shifts, seasonal outliers) are fixed in the past and are detected automatically ont the past 12 months onwards. The critical value for outlier detection, the filter length and the model/filter selection depend on the series and may have to be changed manually to improve the quality of the seasonal correction. This was the case to neutralize some particular points associated with the 2020-2021 health crisis (lockdowns for example), which would have induced an unjustified distortion of the seasonal coefficients over the past.
Either additive or multiplicative decomposition can be used. The seasonal adjustment models are reexamined every year (favouring stability) and the parameters are re-estimated every month.

Each month the SA-WDA data are revised from 2012. For the seasonal adjustment of indices in the recent past, the models are now estimated over a reduced sub-period (from 2005 onwards), in accordance with Eurostat guidelines, and in order to reinforce the robustness of the seasonal adjustment. The data before 2012 are fixed in evolution, in accordance with Eurostat's guidelines (avoid revisions over a too long period).

Not available.