National Statistical Institute 

Labour Statistics

2, P. Volov Str.; 1038 Sofia, Bulgaria.

The source is the Quarterly survey on employees, hours worked, wages and salaries, and other labour costs paid by employers.
The quarterly employment survey covers the whole economy. Through that survey the following short-term indicators are compiled for industry, construction, retail trade and services:
— Number of persons employed;
— Hours worked;
— Wages and salaries.

Classification of Economic Activities (CEA-2008) fully comparable with NACE Rev. 2.

The survey covers all economic activities, notably all of those required under the provisions of Regulation 2020/1197: industry, construction, retail trade and other services. Units that have no paid employees under a labour contract are excluded.

List and definition of variables:

Employees are all persons (without self-employed) who have a labour contract (fixed or permanent; full-time or part-time) with their employer by virtue of the Labour Code or the Civil Servants Act and who receive remuneration in cash or in kind for certain quality and quantity of work done.

Gross wages and salaries are the remunerations paid regularly to the employees by the employers before the deduction of any tax and social security contributions payable by the employees and withheld by the employers. Gross wages and salaries comprise of: basic wages and salaries for time worked or work done; payments for statutory, contractual or voluntary leave; payments for overtime, shift work, extreme working conditions, length of service; monthly, quarterly and annual bonuses.

Hours worked, are defined as hours actually worked. They include hours actually worked by the employees under labour contract during contractual working time, overtime hours, time, spent at the place of work on tasks related to the preparation the workplace, repairs and maintenance, making out of receipts and reports and time corresponding to short periods of rest.

- Number of employees – at the end of each month of the reference quarter.
- Wages and salaries - data refers to the calendar quarter.
- Hours worked - data refers to the calendar quarter.

Enterprise. 

The sampling frame for the  Quarterly survey on employees, hours worked, wages and salaries, and other labour costs is based on Statistical Register and consists of all units that have submitted Annual activity reports in NSI and have at least one employee under labour contract. The general population in:

-  industry consist of 20 329 units, as 3350 of them are included in the 2023 quarterly survey sample;

- construction consist of 12 206 units, as 1001 of them are included in the 2023 quarterly survey sample;

- retail trade, except of motor vehicles and motorcycles consist of 41 483 units, as 2226 of them are included in the 2023 quarterly survey sample;

- services consist of 79 065 units, as 6339 of them are included in the 2023 quarterly survey sample;

All regions of Bulgaria are covered. Employees working outside the country are not included in the data.

The survey has been carried out since 1996.

2021

Employees - number at the and of the of the quarter. Transmitted as indices to Eurostat and published as numbers at national level;

Wages and salaries - national currency (BGN), the total sum of wages and salaries costs during the quarter. Transmitted as indices to Eurostat and not published at national level;

Hours worked - number of hours actually worked during the quarter.Transmitted as indices to Eurostat and not published at national level;

The information is collected quarterly with possible monthly outputs.

 Legal basis:

- The Law on Statistics (Article 20) states that all persons that manage or represent legal persons, are obliged to provide the National Statistical Institute and the Bodies of Statistics with reliable data when filling-in forms and questionnaires on surveys included in the National Statistical Programme, for which mandatory participation is provided. Statistics Act | National statistical institute (nsi.bg) 

- Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European business statistics, repealing 10 legal acts in the field of business statistics (EBS-Regulation).

All EU documents following the EBS-Regulation can be found in the STS section on Eurostat’s website under Statistics => Short-term business statistics => Legislation

Obligation on units to provide data:

The survey is included into the National Statistical Programme – it is compulsory.
The Law of statistics includes provisions relating to fines, which can be imposed for refusal, non-response and delay. They are laid down in specific Chapter 9 “Administrative and liability provisions” in article 52.

Data on number of employees are published on the NSI official web site and in Information system INFOSTAT. Other national and international users can receive more detailed data, not published on the NSI web page upon request according to the NSI Regulation for dissemination of statistical products and services.

The NSI disseminates data under Chapter 5 of the Law on statistics that requires the National Statistical Institute and the Bodies of Statistics to inform the public about the results of the statistical surveys through the mass media, their web sites, own publications or other appropriate means.
The Law on Statistics includes provisions relating to data confidentiality and protection of secrecy, which are in compliance with the EU legislation and standard European practice. In the Law is stated that individual data received and collected at the time of statistical surveys shall be statistically confidential and shall be used only for statistical purposes. Individual data, obtained for the purposes of the statistical surveys, shall not be used as evidence to the bodies of the executive powers and the judicial authorities. Requirements, obligations and measures for data protection, as well as fines that can be imposed, are treated in separate chapters, namely Chapter 6 on "Protection of secrecy” and Chapter 9 on "Administrative penal provisions”. Article 25 of the Law specifies the criteria, according to which certain data cannot be made public or released – individual data, data which could be indirectly identified, as well as aggregations of less than three statistical units and/or when the relative share of one parameter is more than 85% of the total volume of this parameter for all population units.
Data are posted (in Bulgarian and in English) on the National Statistical Institute website http: http://www.nsi.bg/en .

No confidential data is published. Primary confidentiality of the data is treated through a computer program. Secondary confidentiality is treated manually.

An advance release calendar that gives the precise release dates for the next calendar year is posted in the beginning of each year at the National Statistical Institute website.

The calendar is available on the NSI website: http://www.nsi.bg/en/node/480

Simultaneous release to all interested parties - data are simultaneously posted on the National Statistical Institute website.

Identification of internal government access to data before release - the data produced and disseminated by the National Statistical Institute are provided 1 hour before publication to the government officials outside of the NSI.

Transmission to Eurostat and further use of the statistics - data are transmitted to Eurostat shortly after national publication with the required level of detail and in the required technical format.

The data on employees, wages and salaries and hours worked are transmitted with quarterly frequency to Eurostat. The data on employees are disseminated at national level with quarterly frequency too.

There is no news release. 

No paper publications are produced with short term statistics results.

Output table are posted on the NSI website: https://nsi.bg/en/content/3945/short-term-business-statistics.

In Information system INFOSTAT: https://infostat.nsi.bg/infostat/pages/module.jsf?x_2=268

Access to anonymised micro-data can be granted for research and scientific purposes upon request and following the Rules for granting access to anonymised micro-data for scientific and research purposes set by NSI.

 Data are transmitted to Eurostat within the required format and timeliness.

All of the NSI publications contain methodological notes and definitions. Other documents, including copies of survey instruments, are available from the NSI library. The Quarterly survey on employees, hours worked, wages and salaries, and other labour costs paid by employers methodology is available on the web site of NSI:https://www.nsi.bg/en/content/3923/total  

Quality report is produced every year for the Labour Cost Index, which is calculated form the Quarterly survey on employees, hours worked, wages and salaries, and other labour costs.

According to Article 2, point 3 from the Law on Statistics the statistical information shall be produced in compliance with the following criteria for quality: adequacy, accuracy, timeliness, punctuality, accessibility and clarity, comparability and logical consistency.

The quality of the short-term indicators is measured by each Member State in accordance with the general criteria. Calculation of the variables is carried out in accordance with EU Regulations on Short-term business statistics. There are no specific problems related to the employment, wages and salaries and hours worked. The data are normally checked at three levels. First at the data entry (there are logical and arithmetic controls applied), then at regional level by NSI regional offices and in the third final stage from NSI head office.

Main users of the information are:

- Eurostat;

- Representatives of central and local government;

 - Media and organizations, business.

 - Internal users: Directorate „Macroeconomic statistics“.

No information available.

All levels of detail that are required by the Regulations concerning STS are produced. Regarding employment data, it refers to the number of employees under labour contract instead of the persons employed.

The overall accuracy of the survey results depends of:

• Sample size. Each quarter at about 20.0 thousands enterprises are surveyed.  The private sector sample is a stratified random sample without replacement. The stratification criteria used are: size of the enterprise in terms of employees, economic activity and NUTS 3 level. The sampling rates for the enterprises according to the number of employees are as follows: up to 49 employees - 6.4%, from 50 to 99 employees – 58.4% and 100 and more employees – 100% (census). The public sector enterprises are covered exhaustively;
• Sampling frame. The sampling frame from which the survey sample is drown from the annual exhaustive survey on Number of employees, wages and salaries and other labour costs for the year t-2 (the last available at the moment of sampling). The sampling frame is updated with information from administrative sources;
• Survey tools. The statistical form for the survey is available in electronic and paper format. In 2012 the survey become part from Information system Short-term Business Statistics and in 2021 from the new Information system Business Cycles, which is on-line based allowing 24 hours data collection and incorporates logical and arithmetic controls visible immediately during the data entry;

Methods for errors identification and correction. The data processing goes through three main stages of validation: 1) data entry - 85 checks are included in the electronic form which control the plausibility of the inserted values and item non-response; 2) at regional level, the Regional Statistical Offices of NSI perform post-validation via 25 additional control incl. checks for coverage, extreme and missing values; 3) at national level, the Head Office of NSI performs additional validation as well for coverage and completeness. Comparability is made with pervious periods and administrative sources.

Coefficients of variation and confidence intervals are calculated for assessment of stochastic reliability of the estimation for main indicators. For third quarter of 2023 they are as follows: 

The non-response rate is within the following limits: (2.3%) for industry, (5.7%) for construction, (6.0%) for retail trade, except of motor vehicles and motorcycles and (5.5%) for services.

The reasons for non-response are rather due to the use of old sampling frame i.e. inclusion in the sample of dead enterprises, enterprises with frozen activity, without employees, out of date contact information etc. rather than explicit refusals.

Unit non-response adjustment is done by re-weighting - sample size is replaced with the number of the responded units in the calculation of weights. Information from administrative Register of Insured Persons is used as well.

Data on the number of employees and their wages and salarie, are published 40 days after the end of I-st, II-nd and III-rd quarter. The IV-th quarter data are announced 45 day after the end of the reference period.

NSI fulfils the timeliness requirements of the STS.

The national and regional statistical data on employees, hours worked, wages and salaries are in compliance with the acting Classification of territorial units for statistical purposes in Bulgaria (NUTS). The whole country is covered.

The comparability over time is disturbed by the changes of the Classification of Economic Activities. Up to 2007 NACE.Rev 1.1. was in force, since 2008 NACE.Rev.2 was implemented, which resulted in break of the time series. The STS series were back casted according to the NACE.Rev.2 as the time series begin from first quarter of 2000.

Coherence between the Labour Force Survey (LFS) and the Quarterly survey on number of employees, time worked, wages and salaries and other labour costs

The main difference between the both sources is due to the fact that the survey on Number of employees, wages and salaries and other labour costs collects information on the persons which have an employment contract according to the Labour Code or Civil Servants Act, while Labour Force Survey covers employees working by other type of contract or without any contract, as well the self-employed (working proprietors, own account works and unpaid family workers). LFS includes armed forces, but excludes persons on leave for raising a child up to two years of age.

Methodological differences such as: sampling unit, reference period, methods of data classification by economic activity, regional distribution (working place/ residence) etc. are potential reason for data discrepancies as well.

Coherence between the Quarterly survey on number of employees, time worked, wages and salaries and other labour costs and National Accounts

National Accounts as a system responsible for producing statistics with full coverage of the national economy and assuring comparability with the other main macroeconomic indicators is combining different sources in its estimates therefore the figures for employment, compensation of employees are different from the ones produced from the survey on employees, wages and salaries and other labour costs. There are differences in the definitions as well. The compensation of employees calculated by National Accounts includes payments which are not included in total labour costs such as: part of daily allowances for business travelling; provision of recreation or holiday facilities for employees and their families; costs related to employees working under non-labour contract and their earnings in the form of fees and commissions. National Accounts make additional adjustments for exhaustiveness on the following components: tips are estimated for activities like restaurants, bars, transport and other service activities (hairdressing and other beauty treatment); non-reported wages for employees working without any contract (informal employment).

All indicators are internal coherent. All aggregates are calculated as sum of the corresponding sub-aggregates.

Since the beginning of 2012 NSI have started an online information system for data collection, data editing and data processing of information. The online system provides more efficient way of collecting data from enterprises. It saved resources, reduced the burden on respondents and improved the quality of short term indicators.

For industry - the respondents’ burden per year is estimated at about 930 hours. The NSI costs are 2770 hours per year;

For construction - the respondents’ burden per year is estimated at about 300 hours. The NSI costs are 780 hours per year

For retail trade, except of motor vehicles and motorcycles- the respondents’ burden per year is estimated at about 500 hours. The NSI costs are 1300 hours per year

For services - the respondents’ burden per year is estimated at about 1200 hours. The NSI costs are 2880 hours per year

These estimations are based on various assumptions and conditions as no information is collected for the respondents’ burden by NSI. The assessment covers only the costs and burden for fulfilling the specific STS requirements.

The data revision means that different estimations for one and the same indicator are presented in different point of time. The main purpose of the revisions is to publish the best available estimates at the moment taking into account more exhaustive and with the better quality information available. The actual date of publication of revised data is announced in the NSI release calendar which is published in the beginning of the year. The quarterly data from the sample survey on employment and labour costs is compared with the annual data on employment and labour costs (from exhaustive survey) and if significant differences are identified the quarterly figures are revised. The old (not revised) data is removed and replaced by the revised one on the official NSI web site.

The population from which the survey sample for year t is drown contains all private sector enterprises that submitted annual balance sheets (incl. labour form) for year t-2 (the most recent available at the time of sampling) and the privatized enterprises during year (t-1). Due to the long period of time between the population from which the sample is made and the reference year two revisions of quarterly data are need to be done. The first revision is done when annual final data for year (t-1) are announced. Its aim is to update the population. The second one is imposed due to the impossibility to cover the newly established firms in time and it is done when annual final data for year (t) become available.

The data source is the quarterly sample survey on the Number of employees, time worked, wages and salaries and other labour costs. Its’ sample includes around 20 000 enterprises and public sector organizations from all economic activities and size classes.

Quarterly

The data is collected via paper and electronic (on-line) questionnaire.

The data validation goes through three stages:

- At the data entry;

- At regional level by the NSI Regional Statistical Offices;

- At national level by the NSI Head Office.

Before transmission to Eurostat the data are checked for consistency with previous quarter. The composition of aggregates is checked as well.

 The data processing goes through the following stages:

• On-line data entry;
• Data validation;
• Correction of errors and imputation of missing information using administrative sources;
• Calculation of weights and weighting the results;
• Producing standardized output tables with main survey results.

Hours worked are unadjusted, seasonally and calendar adjusted index data.

Wages and salaries are unadjusted and calendar adjusted index data.

Number of employees are unadjusted index data.

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