Federal Statistical Office (FSO)

E 21 "Business indices, seasonal adjustment"

Statistisches Bundesamt
Gustav-Stresemann-Ring 11
65180 Wiesbaden, Germany

This indicator is part of the overall STS indicator system which supports business cycle observation. The construction cost indices are calculated on the basis of already existing data that have been collected for primary purposes. Specific surveys are not conducted.

Classification of types of construction (CC)

CC roughly covers activities equivalent to NACE Rev. 2 Section F. All size classes are covered.

The construction cost index can be described as an input or factor price index, respectively, that shows the evolution of costs incurred by the contractor to carry out the construction process. The construction cost index covers material costs, labour costs and other types of costs like plant/equipment, operating supplies/energy, indirect material and other costs. Architect’s fees and the costs of the site are not covered. Moreover, changes in productivity and in the contractors’ margins (profits) are not included. Generally, the construction cost index only refers to newly built residential buildings.

For the two main cost components (material, labour), additional sub-indices (material cost index, labour costs index) are calculated. The index for material shows the evolution of costs for construction materials incurred by individual construction services. The labour cost index reflects the trend of total labour costs for all employees in the construction industry. The two main components of labour costs are wages and salaries as well as the employer’s social contributions.

Prices and labour costs are originally reported by enterprises. Since the construction cost index is a secondary statistics, there are no statistical units surveyed directly.

The primary statistics refer to prices and labour costs of activities mentioned above which are set by German enterprises in Germany.

Country as a whole.

Since 2005.

2015 = 100

Index.

Quarter.

The laws regulating the collection, treatment and dissemination of statistical data are the Council Regulation (EC) No. 1165/98 of 19 May 1998 concerning short-term statistics with implementing acts (e.g. Commission Regulation No 1503/2006 of 28 September 2006 concerning the definitions) as well as the Federal Statistics Act (1987) and the law on price statistics (PreisStatG of 1958).

Data sent to Eurostat may contain confidential data to compile the European aggregate.

Confidentiality is guaranteed by section 16 of the Federal Statistics Act. It requires that respondents must be informed about their rights and obligations in providing statistical information. This rule is strictly followed. It also applies to the notification that individual data are only used for statistical purposes and - subject to protection procedures - for scientific purposes.

Furthermore, Chapter V “Statistical Confidentiality” of Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council applies.

As regards the confidentiality of data, methods of primary and secondary confidentiality checking have been developed and are being used.

The construction cost index is not yet included in the release calendar.

Not available.

Indices are simultaneously released to all parties. The data are available at the database “GENESIS-Online” for all users at the same time.

Identification of internal government access to data before release in accordance with Principle 6.7 of the European Statistics Code of Practice is not applicable. All users have simultaneous access to data released.

Quarterly.

Not available.

Indices are published online:

Fachserie 17, Reihe 4: Preisindizes für die Bauwirtschaft

https://www.destatis.de/DE/Publikationen/Thematisch/Preise/Baupreise/BauwirtschaftPreise.html

Indices are also published at the time series database “GENESIS-Online”

https://www-genesis.destatis.de/

The construction cost indices are published quarterly as construction cost index (Variable 320), material cost index (Variable 321) and labour cost index (Variable 322).

Not available.

Data are transmitted to Eurostat.

Documentation of the methodology of the construction cost indices is published in "Wirtschaft und Statistik".

Standardized quality reports are published on the website of the FSO. However, they are not available for construction cost indices.

The data of German official statistics enjoy a reputation of high reliability in Germany and abroad. The FSO has committed itself to assure and further enhance the level of quality already attained. In order to achieve this task – also in the ESS – the activities of the FSO are based on quality guidelines. To assure quality in the long term, the FSO applies a variety of systematic quality assurance measures, among others the European Statistics Code of Practice.

Detailed descriptions can be found here:

https://www.destatis.de/EN/Methods/Quality/_node.html

Quality is assessed via subjective criteria. However, quality checks are done throughout the whole process which, in turn, is evaluated permanently. Moreover, the FSO has implemented a controlling system to monitor the compliance of transmission deadlines. The results of this controlling mechanism are for internal purposes only and therefore not published.

Main users of turnover indices are the European Commission (Eurostat) at the international level and the Federal Government and interest groupings of various industrial branches at the national level.

The FSO conducts user satisfaction surveys in various sectors of statistics. The Statistical Advisory Committee (Statistischer Beirat) represents the interests of the users of federal statistics and regularly consults with the FSO.

STS requirements according to EU regulations and national laws are fulfilled.

The accuracy is assessed as very good. Still, main sources for errors/potential for bias in the calculation are induced by survey data, in particular item non-response, over and under coverage, incorrect classified units in the sample frame, implausible data, incorrect signing of the non-response case and inappropriate estimation of missing values. 

Data have been collected for other primary purposes.

Data have been collected for other primary purposes.

Results are published 75 days after the end of the reference month (t+75).

All publication deadlines are met.

The construction cost index is geographically comparable.

Consistent time series of the recent base year are available since 2000.

There is no dissemination of information that support statistical cross-checks and provide assurance of reasonableness.

Internal coherence is not applicable.

It is not possible to determine the costs and loads for this index separately. The cost and burden of all STS- indicators in total were transmitted to Eurostat.

The International Standard Cost Model will be used to measure administrative costs by the FSO.

The general revision policy of the Federal Statistical Office is published under the following URL:

https://www.destatis.de/EN/Methods/Quality/GeneralRevisionsPolicy.html

This policy applies to national publications and data sent to Eurostat.

Since the labour costs index is seasonally adjusted, the total construction cost index is regularly revised. In the context of rebasing the index is recalculated from the beginning of the base year.

Users are informed about the upcoming rebasing at least three months in advance. Documentation of rebasing is further given in "Wirtschaft und Statistik". The FSO also publishes the rebased figures on its website. For nearly three years, results are available for the old and the new base year. Differences are usually very small.

Publication errors are corrected in accordance with the general FSO policy on non-scheduled revisions which deals with publication errors. A link to this policy is found is given in section 11.1 “Quality Assurance”.

The data have been collected for other primary purposes.

The data sources in order to calculate the construction cost indices are as follows:

For the calculation of the material cost index as well as for the cost elements plant/equipment, operating supplies/energy, indirect material and other cost elements, the information and results of the official producer price statistics for industrial products (domestic sales) is used. The producer price indices can be regarded as purchase price indices for construction firms. In this case the purchase prices represent the costs for materials/goods incurred by the contractor needed to carry out the construction process. Altogether about 150 different series of individual prices/indices from the producer price statistics are used in order to calculate the construction cost indices. The labour cost index is taken from the official statistics on earnings and labour costs; in particular the labour cost index for construction (NACE Rev. 2 Section F) is used.

Data are collected quarterly.

Questionnaires are used for collecting data of the primary statistics which represent the underlying data set of construction cost indices. Additional questionnaires are not used as a specific survey is not carried out.

Plausibility checks are generally performed by assessing changing rates of different construction cost indices.

Estimates for non-response or for grossing up to population levels is not applicable.

The type of indices is Laspeyres which are in general re-based every five years.

The weighting of the different cost elements is done by using information taken from an external data provider. The external data base which is used is named “Construction Costs library”. The external data base used offers standard prices and a very detailed analytical breakdown into the different price components for more than 1 million individual construction operations resulting from quotation costing processes. The selection and classification of the individual construction operations is derived from the official construction price statistics. Altogether about 170 construction operations are divided into their different cost components. The construction operations themselves are weighted on the basis of the already existing weighting schemes of the official construction price statistics. Therefore, in order to set up a weighting scheme for residential buildings at large, the weighting schemes for single-family buildings and multi-family buildings are aggregated by using the official building activity statistics (parameter used for this purpose: living area in square metres).

no adjustment

None.