Statec - Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques

Unit ENT4 "Business indicators, transport and tourism statistics"

BP 304 L-2013 Luxembourg

The wages and salaries indicators are short term indicators used for the business cycle analysis.

NACE Rev2

The NACE Rev2 coverage is the following:

retail trade: NACE 47

The variables are defined as fixed in the Regulation EC 1503/2006:

Wages and salaries

It is the objective of the wages and salaries index to approximate the development of the wage and salaries bill.

Wages and salaries are defined as the total remuneration, in cash or in kind, payable to all persons counted on the payroll (including home workers), in return for work done during the accounting period, regardless of whether it is paid on the basis of working time, output or piecework and whether it is paid regularly.

Wages and salaries include the values of any social contributions, income taxes, etc. payable by the employee even if they are actually withheld by the employer and paid directly to social insurance schemes, tax authorities, etc. on behalf of the employee. Wages and salaries do not include social contributions payable by the employer.

Wages and salaries include: all gratuities, bonuses, ex gratia payments, 13th month payments, severance payments, lodging, transport, cost-of-living, and family allowances, tips, commission, attendance fees, etc. received by employees, as well as taxes, social security contributions and other amounts payable by employees and withheld at source by the employer.

Payments for agency workers are not included in wages and salaries.

According to this definition, the items included are:

— all basic wages and salaries payable at regular intervals,

— enhanced rates of pay for overtime, nightshift, weekend work, etc.,

— any allowances, gratuities or bonuses paid by the employer, such as:

— cost of living, housing, local or expatriation allowances,

— food allowances,

— allowances for travelling to and from work,

— holiday bonuses, 13th month pay,

— allowances actually paid for annual holidays not taken,

— output, production or productivity bonuses,

— extra allowances for extreme working conditions like dust, dirt, temperature, smoke, danger, etc.,

— exceptional payments to employees who leave the enterprise, if those payments are not linked to a collective agreement,

— allowances for improvement proposals and patent fees paid to the person employed,

— directors’ and employees’ fees,

— family allowances paid by the employer under a collective agreement,

— commissions,

— value of bonus shares distributed free to the employees,

— payments made by employers to employees under saving schemes or other schemes,

— taxes, contributions and other sums payable by employees and deducted by employers,

— any payment in kind.

The items excluded are:

— statutory social contributions payable by the employer,

— collectively agreed, contractual and voluntary social contributions payable by the employer,

— imputed social contributions (social benefits paid directly by the employer),

— allowances paid to employees for the purchase of tools, equipment and special clothing needed for their work or that part of their wages and salaries which under their contracts of employment are required to devote such purchases,

— taxes paid by the employer on the total wages and salaries paid,

— reimbursement of employees for travelling, removal, separation, hotel and entertaining expenses, telephone fees etc. incurred in the course of their duties,

— expenditure for vocational training (training costs), excluding apprentices wages and salaries,

— wages and salaries which the employer continues to pay in the event of illness, occupational accident, maternity leave or short-time working,

— other labour cost expenditure payable by the employer:

— recruitment costs,

— social expenditure such as the reimbursement of current expenditure on the transport of employees to and from work, whether this is carried out by the enterprises’ own means of transport or by third parties on behalf of the enterprise, payments to trade union funds,

— stock options

For the evaluation of payments in kind the following rule applies: payments in kind produced by the employer should be valued at producer prices; payments in kind bought by the employer should be valued at market price

In industry and construction, the statical units are kind-of-activity units (KAUs). In retail trade and other services, the statistical units are enterprises (or legal entities).

population for NACE Rev2 by annex coverage according to the Luxembourg business register

The labour indicators disseminated concern domestic statistical units. No domestic geographical area is excluded.

Wages and salaries: monthly figures from 2005 on

Base 100 in 2015

Indices

Quarter

Statec is the National Institute of statistics and economic studies of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Statec's administration is placed under the authority of the Ministry of the Economy and Foreign Trade. It is professionally and scientifically independent, i.e. it sets its own work programme in accordance with national and European statistical legislation, produces and disseminates data in complete neutrality.

The Law of July 10, 2011 on the organisation of the National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies sets out the missions of Statec and its internal organisation. These missions are to provide a public information service of high quality to public and private decision-makers as well as to citizens. Statec is committed to produce statistics, analyses and studies giving a detailed, reliable and objective image of the society of Luxembourg.

Statec coordinates the statistical system of Luxembourg, organised according to the principle of statistical centralisation. For this purpose it widely relies on collaboration with other producers of data as well as with public and private research centres. Statec so centralises data available from public authorities to carry out its studies, but also to make them available to its users on a single platform. With the new law of July 10, 2011, applied scientific research is added to Statec’s missions.

There is no general datasharing

STATEC guarantees the non-disclosure of confidential information when the statistical results are disseminated.

The ESS confidentiality rules are applied.

There is no official national release calendar.

There is no release calendar.

The release days are the days data are transmitted to Eurostat. According to the principle of independence, data is released to all users at the same time.

Statec disseminates the STS indicators in the delays foreseen by the STS regulation.

There is no news release for these indicators.

There is no national publicatio of these data.

There is no online database, but historical figures are available on request.

There is no microdata access.

not available

There are no national methodological documents available except STS variable definitions. Statec uses the methodology published in the STS manual.

There is no document on quality management available.

There is no specific quality management concerning these indicators.

The quality of the indicator is compliant with Eurostat recommendations.

Checks carried out along the production chain of the indices.

There is no further information on the relevance of this indicator for users.

No measure of user satisfaction

All of the required series are available.

These indexes are based on administrative data.

not available

Error in administrative records or in statistical treatments.

Statec produces these indicators within the delays foreseen by the STS regulation.

Data is delivered at the Eurostat’s deadline.

There is no measurement of the impact of differences in applied statistical concepts.

The time series do not show any significant breaks.

STS statistics are used for business cycle analysis as well as for the compilation of quarterly national accounts. Due to the different concepts, short-term statistics are not completely cohernt with other business statistics as SBS.

The units in charge of STS try to achieve a high level of coherence within the given data set (sub-aggregates / aggregates, unadjusted/adjusted time series, etc.

Not available

There is no general national STS revision policy. Figures are revised each time errors are detected or new raw data available.

There is no general national STS revision policy.

Retail trade : the indicators are calculated with raw data transmitted in administrative files by the social security general inspection.

Administrative data are available on a monthly basis.

Monthly administrative data

Data is checked before the electronic processing (completeness, errors, large deviations from the normal level, etc.)

The wages and salaries indicator is produced by Statec's unit ENT4 in charge of short-term business indicators.

There is no adjustment performed on the data.

None