INSEE: Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques (French NSI : National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies).

Division SRA: Salaires et Revenus d’Activité (Wages and Earned Income division)

INSEE

Division SRA - timbre F240

88 Avenue Verdier

CS70058 - 92541 Montrouge cedex

Indicator: Gross wages and salaries index in Industry, Construction, Wholesale and retail trade and repair, Other services.

The short-term economic indicators (on wages and salaries) are available at the levels required by Eurostat: sections and divisions of the NAF (respectively A21 and A88 levels), and some specific groups including MIG ("Main industrial groupings", intermediate level between sectors and divisions, detailed in "Annex II" of the "EBS regulation 2020/1197"). Apart from certain differences in statistical treatments, data used to produce the STS - Wages and salaries indicators are also used to calculate the labour cost index (LCI; more precisely, the numerator of the LCI - Wages and salaries).
Source: administrative data from "URSSAF Caisse nationale" (former Organisation for the Payment of Social Security and Familial Benefit Contributions), in charge of collecting social security contributions.

NACE Rev. 2 (Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community).

Activities covered :

• Industry: sections B to D and E36 (total, MIGs, section-level, 2-digit level (E37 to E39 not included))
• Construction: section F
• Wholesale and retail trade and repair: Section G (G45 and G46, excluding G47), G47 (total, total without G473).
• Other services: sections H, I, J, M (excluding M701, M72 and M75), N: sections H, I, J, M_STS (M69+M702+M71+M73+M74), N.

The indicators correspond to the evolution of the wages and salaries of employees (code D.11, ESA 2010). The wage bill, provided by "URSSAF Caisse nationale", corresponds to the gross social security base. It excludes employee savings plans (incentive pay, profit-sharing, employer contribution to savings plans), as data on employee savings schemes are available with considerable delay. Apart from this limitation, the wage bill complies with the D11 item of the labour cost classification (defined by the "Information on labour costs Regulation 1737/2005"), including the PEPA / PPV payments (premiums free of social security contributions).

Further informations on PEPA/ PPV premiums: the exceptional purchasing power bonus (PEPA) voted by Parliament at the end of 2018 was renewed twice (in 2020 and between 1st June 2021 and 31st March 2022): the scheme provided initially that all companies could pay up to 1,000 euros in bonuses exempt from income tax and social security contributions, per employee whose remuneration was below three times the SMIC (minimum wage). At the beginning of 2020, the scheme was renewed only for companies that had signed a profit-sharing agreement, before being extended, in the context of the health crisis, to all companies (the threshold being raised to 2,000 euros for those that had signed a profit-sharing agreement). The scheme in effect in 2020 has been extended on similar terms for the period from 1st June 2021 to 31st March 2022. From 1st July 2022, the value-sharing bonus (PPV) replaced the special bonus for purchasing power. It is based on the same principles, with the extension of the scheme to all employees (including those earning more than three times the SMIC) and a tripling of the payment caps: between July 2022 and December 2023, companies may pay each employee up to 3,000 euros in bonuses per calendar year (and even 6,000 euros for companies with a profit-sharing agreement), exempt from income tax and social security contributions (the bonus is tax-free only for employees earning less than three times the minimum wage). Since 1st January 2024, PPV payments are subject, for some of the beneficiaries, to social contributions and income tax. As such, the payments of theses bonuses are not included in the gross payroll subject to contributions collected by "URSSAF Caisse nationale" and used to calculate the index. However, they are provided by another URSSAF information system and integrated in the STS indicator calculations.

Local unit.

Around 2 million local units whose identity is recorded in the SIRENE Register (National Enterprise and Establishment Register Database). Foreign firms with an activity in France are also recorded in it.
No size threshold.

No size threshold.

Metropolitan France and Overseas departments but Mayotte (DOM). Activities outside this area are not included in the data.

Since 2000Q1.

From the 2024Q1 publication, the base year is 2021=100.

Index. Original data in current Euros.

Quarter.

At European level

The European Parliament and Council adopted the "European Business Statistics (EBS) Regulation (EU) 2019/2152" on 27 November 2019, followed by the "Commission Implementing Regulation 2020/1197" laying down technical specifications and arrangements pursuant to the mentioned EBS Regulation (General Implementing Act).
The former legal basis for the STS indicators was the "Council Regulation No 1165/98" of 19 May 1998 concerning short-term statistics and subsequent amending regulations.

At national level

It is an administrative obligation for units to provide data when paying National Insurance Contributions (risk of financial sanctions in terms of Article "R243-16" of the Social Security Code). The adjustments after an inspection are subject to a 3-year prescription period, which is raised to 5 years in case of undeclared work.

An agreement is signed by INSEE and "URSSAF Caisse nationale" on the use of URSSAF data.

All statistics collected and published by INSEE are governed by the "statistical (amended) Law" of the 7th June 1951 concerning "the obligation, the coordination and the secrecy as regards statistics", published in "Journal officiel de la République française". The protection of private information during data processing is covered by the Law of the 6th January 1978 concerning "data processing, files and freedoms", published in "Journal officiel de la République française".
At European level, the confidentiality is enshrined in article 285 of the "Treaty establishing the European Community". Statistical confidentiality is covered in "Chapter V" of "Regulation 223/2009" of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11th March 2009 and in implementing regulation concerning access to confidential data for scientific purposes ("Commission Regulation 557/2013" of 17th June 2013).

The "INSEE Guide to Statistical Confidentiality" gives details about the practical rules ensuring compliance with the principle of statistical confidentiality and comments the 1951 Law and the operating methods of the Statistical Confidentiality Committee.
It is explicitly foreseen that information drawn from administrative sources is also covered by statistical confidentiality.

End of each quarter (3-month Eurostat deadline, i.e. approximately Q+90 days). Indicators are not disseminated nationally at any level of detail.

Not available because no release at national level.

Specific tables for Eurostat only: quarterly series (2021=100) at NACE Rev. 2 classification level, with special agregates (e.g. MIGS). No internal government access to data before release.

Quarterly.

Not available, because the STS - Wages and salaries indicators are not released at national level.

Not available.

Not available.

Not available.

Quarterly transmission to Eurostat using the SDMX exchange format.

See the documentation on wages and salaries in annex below, avalaible on insee.fr and urssaf.org.
Annexes:
Documentation on Wage bill
Urssaf documentation on Employment and Wage bill (only in french)

Not applicable specifically on the production process of the STS - Wages and salaries indicators.

Checks on data are carried out within the source :

• consistency between remuneration and employment
• likelihood of quarterly and annual evolutions
• analysis of revisions to previous quarterly data
• comparison with other wage indicators (for more details, see Section 15.3).

The characteristics of the source (general compulsory declarations for calculating tax and social contributions) ensure that the indicator is highly robust.

Currently, Eurostat is the main user of the STS - Wages and salaries indicators. The Commission and the European Central Bank may also use the STS indicators (but more generally, the labour cost index is used) to assess short-term changes in labour costs and to evaluate inflationary pressures linked to changes in the labour market.

Data are considered satisfying the EBS Regulation requests by Eurostat.

Quarterly statistics on wages and salaries cover all economic sectors (required by Eurostat) and the whole of France, excluding Mayotte.
Employee saving schemes present a strong seasonality, whose sensitive seasonal adjustment is likely to disturb the interpretation of this business cycle indicator. Furthermore, data on employee savings schemes are available with considerable delay. That’s why these payments have so far been excluded (as have been payments to employees leaving the enterprise, aggregated to the latter in the source) but could be reintegrated in the future.

Almost exhaustive census, regardless of enterprise size. Presumably unbiased data but  inaccuracy can come from errors in records (e.g. in employers declaration).

Administrative data is supposed to be almost exhaustive. Gaps in collectected data are corrected if any is detected.
Taking into account the social data transmitted by another INSEE partner, MSA (Agricultural mutual benefit social fund), would ensure a complete coverage in a few sectors (e.g. 10 to 12 sectors at 2-digit level of NACE). Compared with URSSAF, these data would need a further delay of one quarter to become available.

Inaccuracy can come from errors in records (e.g. in employers declaration) which are corrected when they are detected.

Quarterly, URSSAF transmits to INSEE (after aggregation of monthly data) two sets of quarterly data: provisional at Q+55, definitive at Q+75. INSEE transmits to Eurostat STS indicators at Q+85-90.

Releases delivered on time.

Wage data are published for the whole of France (including overseas departments but Mayotte) but, in terms of short-term data, there is no publication at local level.

Basic data account for a tax base. Breaks in time series due to changes in taxation rules (e.g. changes in the tax allowance) or major methodological corrections (e.g. improvements in data collection or statistical treatment) are always back-casted (since 2000) to ensure time-constency.

Quarterly, the STS - Wages and salaries indicators are compared with the payroll data produced by the national accounts (in the numerator of the average wage per capita index) and also with the basic monthly wage index (constant structure index, produced by DARES on the basis of the ACEMO survey, and corresponding to the figure given on the first line of an employee's pay slip). A comparison is also made with the numerator of the LCI.
For more details on short-term wage indicators in France, see https://blog.insee.fr/mesurer-l-evolution-des-salaires-a-court-terme/ (only in french).

Consistency ensured by dealing with producing indices at a detailed level of the classification before aggregation.

Burden on businesses: 0 (administrative source). In any case, data used to produce the STS - Wages and salaries indicators are necessary to calculate the LCI.
Cost for the statistical system: Free of charge convention with URSSAF which provides INSEE with aggregated data at 2-digit level of NACE.

Indices for the last quarter are provisional because of delayed (and consequently estimated) data. Exceptional historical revisions may occur, especially in 2020 and 2021, a period marked by the health crisis and, as a result, larger magnitude of the revisions of wage bill than in previous years.
In normal circumstances, revisions in the past may occur when STS indicators are published. Firstly, raw data may be revised, due to the integration or correction of certain information (late declarations, etc.), or additional processing. In addition, each quarter, the updating of seasonal variation coefficients may lead in a slight revision of the published series.

Same as "Policy" above.

Administrative source (census).

At the administrative level, data are collected monthly. The Social Insurance Authority aggregates monthly data and transmits a set of quarterly data each quarter to INSEE.

The basic administrative declaration filled by each unit is the DSN: Nominative Social Declaration.
The DSN (Nominative Social Declaration) is a monthly file produced by companies' payroll software to communicate the information necessary for the management of employee social protection to the relevant organisations and administrations. It replaces all the periodic or event-driven declarations and various administrative formalities sent so far by the employers to a range of operators (social security operators, tax offices, etc.)
The DSN is based on the single, monthly and dematerialised transmission of payroll data and event reports. The data transmitted in the monthly DSN reflects an employee’s situation when the payroll is done. In addition, it reports what happened (illness, maternity, change of an element in the contract of employment, end of the contract, etc.) in the month and had an impact on payroll. The DSN reduces the risk of error and the reporting burden.

"URSSAF Caisse nationale" identifies anomalies and adjusts data at micro level (local unit) as well as at macro level (sector at 2-digits level of Nace). Checks involve the unit historical time-series, with seasonal assessment.

Data provided by Urssaf corresponds to aggregate data at the two-digit level of NACE ("division" or A88 level). However, some groupings requested by Eurostat require more precise data (at the three-digit level of NACE, "group" or A129/A138 level). To compensate for this lack of precision in the data, information is recovered, at the "group" level, from the annual data in the All Employees databases, to weight "division" Urssaf payroll data. For example, for the specific grouping "M STS" (which includes NAF codes 69, 70.2, 71, 73, 74 of the sector "M: Professional, scientific and technical activities"), the Urssaf payroll of division 70 is weighted by the share of payroll of group 702 (based on the All Employees databases).
Elementary series are aggregated, then transformed into indices (chained).

Raw data are available, as well as working-day adjusted and seasonally and working-day adjusted data.
Seasonally adjustement with X13-ARIMA. The seasonal adjustment coefficients are recalculated every quarter.
The method used follows the recommendations of the European Union included in the ESS guidelines on seasonal adjustment.

None.