Statistics Iceland

Economic Statistics

Borgartúni 21A, 105 Reykjavík, Iceland

Indices of number of persons employed. The purpose of this indicator is to reflect the short term development of employment in various economic activities.

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

Market activities of NACE Rev. 2 Sections B, C, D, E36, F, G H to M (excluding K, M701, M72 and M75) and N. There is no threshold in terms of size criteria.

The target variable is the number of employees and self-employed persons which is the sum of the number of employees and number of self- employed persons. The number of employees represents the average number of persons who were, at some time during the reference period, employees of the statistical unit. The number of self-employed persons is the average number of persons who were at some time during the reference period the sole owners or joint owners of the statistical unit in which they work. Family workers and outworkers whose income is a function of the value of the outputs of the statistical unit are also included.

• The number of employees and self-employed persons is approximated by the number of employees. Some owners of small companies use calculated renumeration, i.e. do not use the PAYE system of the Directorate of Internal Revenue (Skatturinn) to register payments to themself.
• Salaried employees are entitled to payments during their parental leave (ref. act no. 95/2000) and are included.
• Employees often receive salary during the notice period of termination, which leads to a small over-coverage.
• There is some under-coveragage since unpaid workers are and self-employed persons are not included.

Legal units (Icelandic "kennitala") are used as proxy for enterprises (ENTs) and Kind of Activity Units (KAUs). 

The statistical population comprises all legal units, both legal entities and natural persons, with employees, operating in market activities in the NACE rev. 2 classes mentioned below.

INDUSTRY: Sections B to E36 of NACE (E37, E38 and E39 not included), MIGs and Section-level of NACE, Division E36

CONSTRUCTION: Section F of NACE

TRADE: Section G (G45, G46, G47) of NACE

SERVICES: Aggregate and sections H, I, J, L, M (excluding M701, M72, M75), N of NACE

Number of legal units with any employees during 2022:

• Industry: 1,444
• Construction: 4,192
• Trade: 3,020
• Services: 9,863

Iceland. The whole country is covered.

The time series for STS indices on employment are available from January 2008.

Year 2015 = 100

Indices of number of persons employed are sent quarterly to Eurostat. The indices are not published nationally. Local users prefer absolute numbers and classifications of economic activities that reflect the national economy. The absolute number of employees by economic activities is published monthly.       

Quarter

Act on Statistics Iceland and official statistics (163/2007):

• The act in Icelandic
• English summary

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 references to the EBS Regulation and its implementing legal acts can be found on the Eurostat website. 

Data are not sent to other international organisations.

 Statistics Iceland's Rules of Procedure for Treating Confidential Data

When publishing and disseminating statistics, care must be taken that information cannot be traced to specific natural or legal entities. Exceptions may be made to this when the respective natural/legal entity has consented to this sort of publication or in the case of administrative records or information which does not have to be kept confidential. In general STS aggregates are not confidential.

STS indices on persons employed are not published nationally.

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The STS-indices on employment are sent to Eurostat qauarterly. They are not published nationally.

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It is possible to apply for micro-data access through Statics Iceland's Research Service: https://statice.is/services/data-for-scientific-research/

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Quality and security policy

Statistics Iceland follows the principles in the Code of Practice for European Statistics (CoP) and uses the Quality Assurance Framework of the European Statistical System (QAF) for the implementation of the principles. This involves continuous decentralized and central control of products and processes based on documentation following international standards.

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Quarterly indices of the number of persons employed in Iceland are sent to Eurostat.

Local users prefer absolute numbers and classifications of economic activities that reflect the national economy. The absolute number of employees by economic activities is published monthly. The main users are trade unions, employer's associations, universities and government agencies.

There is no information available on the user satisfaction of quarterly indices of persons employed in Iceland. However, the nationally published monthly data on absolute numbers of persons employed, using different groups of economic activities, is very popular.

The indices are complete from 2008. There are no gaps of missing data parts.

The statistic are computed using administrative data which covers the total sampling frame. Most corrections are due to updated information on the economic activity (NACE) of employers.

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Administrative data is used. Minor errors in first publications due to late reporting. For data with reference year 2020, 94.9% of the data was available at the due date (T+15 days) and 99.4% one month after the due date.

Data are sent to Eurostat within 2 months and 15 days after then end of the reference period.

Data are usually sent to Eurostat on time.

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The indices are comparable over time.

Results are compared with other sources, including annual data from the Labour Force Survey and data from Structural Business Statistics (SBS).

Each person is only counted once in each aggregate. This is relevant when a person has more than one employment within the same aggregate during the same month. Apart from this, aggregates are always consistent with their sub-aggregates.

Administrative data are used to compile these statistics. Thus, the all costs and burden are related to data compilation within Statistics Iceland.

Errors are corrected when they are found. Users are informed of methodological and other changes which may lead to revisions. Smaller revisions and revisions of preliminary data are not announced.

Every time data is compiled, all indices are revised from the beginning (2008). There might be some small changes in new indices because of late reporting. The main changes are due retrospective changes in economic activity (NACE) in the Statistical Business Register.

• Data on employers and employees come from the pay-as-you-earn (PAYE) register kept by the Directorate of Internal Revenue (Skatturinn). All employers, both legal entities and natural persons, must report all wages and salaries through this register no later than the 15^th day of the month after the reference month. 
• All employees are counted regardless of whether they are registered as living in Iceland or not.
• Employers are classified by economic activity using the Statistical Business Register kept by Statistics Iceland. Those who pay wages or salaries through the PAYE register are automatically entered into the Statistical Business Register. Thus, all data in the PAYE register can be matched with the Statistical Business Register.

Monthly

Data from the PAYE register are transmitted electronically from the Directorate of Internal Revenue (Skatturinn).

The output is quarterly indices, but data validation is done on monthly data.

• For each employer that has had at least 6 employees at any time during the past 15 months, the number of employees in each month of the reporting quarter are compared with previous months and the same months the year before.
• All employers whose economic activity (NACE) has changed during the past 15 months are double-checked. Those who have migrated from one STS-aggregate to another receive special attention.
• For each STS aggregate, the number of employees in each month of the reporting quarter are compared with previous months and the same months the year before.
• All monthly indices are compared with those computed 3 months earlier. Retrospective changes are scrutinised.

• Monthly data are used to compute these indices.
• Filters are used to exclude one-off payments to former employees, e.g. holiday bonuses (May and June) and December bonuses (November and December).
• For each STS aggregate, the number of employees in each month is computed as the number of employees receiving wages or salaries during that month.
• Persons who are employed by more than one employer in the same STS aggregate are only counted once.
• Monthly indices are computed by dividing the number of employees during each month by the average number of employees during the base year (2015) and multiplying with 100.
• Quarterly indices are computed by taking the average of the monthly indices in each quarter.

No corrections of the data are carried out beyond what has already been described during data validation and data processing.

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