Archive:Agricultural labour input

UNDER CONSTRUCTION!!!

Results for agricultural income are measured in terms of the trend in real income per annual work unit (AWU). From year to year there have been small decreases in labour input, but these have rarely been the main driving factor behind the short term changes in Indicator A. However, over a longer period, the development in agricultural labour input constitutes one of the major changes. Detailed data can be found on the Eurostat website.

Main statistical findings

EU agricultural labour down by nearly 25% since 2000

Agricultural labour in the EU has decreased by 24.9% since 2000 which, in terms of AWU, represents a drop of 3.7 million from 14.9 million AWU in 2000 to 11.2 million AWU in EU-27 in 2009. Because many farmers and farm workers are only employed part-time in agriculture, the number of people actually working in agriculture is greater than the number of annual work units.

Measured as a percentage of the total active population in the EU, agricultural labour input in AWU accounted for 4.7% in 2009 (complied based on active population 2008) compared to 6.7% in 2000. In EU-15 the respective percentages in 2009 were 2.8 as against 3.8 in 2000, although the shares – and the changes – in the 12 New Member States were much higher.

In 2009 agricultural labour input represented 12.1% in NMS-12 as a percentage of active population, while the percentage in 2000 was 17.3%, signifying that the fall in agricultural labour input on average in the 12 new Member States is equivalent to more than 5 per cent of the active population. It should be noted that these countries entered EU and the Common Agricultural Policy after 2000.

The rates of decrease in agricultural labour input in the individual countries range from 2.6% in Greece to 55% in Estonia, where labour input has more than halved in less than 10 years. Generally speaking, the decrease is lowest in the EU-15 countries, with Poland (-11.3%) being an exception. In Portugal, on the other hand, the decrease of 31.6% shows a similar trend to the average decrease in labour input for NMS-12 (-31.3%).

Despite the steep falls recorded in the new Member States, agricultural labour input in these countries in 2009 accounted for a little over half (51.7%) of EU-27 agricultural labour input.

The figures for agricultural labour input are recorded in the Economic Accounts for Agriculture as Non-salaried labour input and Salaried labour input, respectively. Since 2000, non-salaried labour input, which represents the largest share in almost all countries (except the Czech Republic and Slovakia), fell by 28.3% in the EU-27, while the salaried portion decreased only by 9.6%.

Agricultural production and labour input

The volume of agricultural production in the EU has remained fairly stable since 2000 according to the indices compiled from the accounts data at constant agricultural prices. The figures show a 4% higher production volume in 2009 than in 2000. As the labour input over the same period decreased by 24.9%, the volume produced per annual work unit has improved significantly.

The EU-15 and the NMS-12 have shown different trends in terms of the volume of output, with a volume for EU-15 that is very stable and a volume for NMS-12 that is growing over time. For NMS-12 the volume has increased by 15% since 2000, based on the average of the indices for 2007-2009.

The differences between the two groups of countries become even clearer when one measures the development in volume per AWU. With this indicator, the EU-15 shows an increase of slightly less than 20% since 2000 - while the increase for NMS-12 is well over 60% since 2000 according to the average indices for 2007-09.

However, the level of output volume produced per annual work unit is still very different between the two groups of EU Member States. As an average for 2007-09 the output in constant agricultural prices (2005 prices) per AWU was 6.4 times higher in the EU-15 than in the NMS-12. Different agricultural products and somewhat lower prices in NMS-12 can explain only a small part of this huge difference in level.

Factor income over labour input

Agricultural labour input has a significant impact on the main indicator (Indicator A) for the Economic Accounts for Agriculture, as the indicator monitors the trend in the real factor income per annual work unit. Figures are available on the Eurostat website.

The figure 3 shows factor income in real values (2005 Euro) divided by the agricultural labour input on average for the years 2000-02 and 2007-09, respectively. The results 2000-02 range from over EUR 30 000 per AWU (Denmark, Switzerland and Netherlands) to slightly over EUR 1 000 per AWU (Latvia). The EU-15 countries plus Cyprus, Malta, Norway and Switzerland, but excluding Portugal, show results above the EU-27 average, while all the new Member States from Eastern and Central Europe are below the average, along with Portugal.

The difference between EU-15 and NMS-12 has been smaller since 2000. For 2000-02 the average real factor income per AWU was 9.5 times higher in EU-15 than in NMS-12. As regards the averages for 2007-09 the result in EU-15 was only 6.4 times higher than in NMS-12. The difference for 2007-09 is higher than can be accounted for by the difference in purchasing power.

The smaller difference is mainly due to a significant rise in the factor income per AWU in the new Member States. In the NMS-12 the real factor income per annual work unit rose from around EUR 2 000 per AWU in 2000-02 to around EUR 3 000 per AWU in 2007-09. On average EU-15 showed no significant changes since 2000-02, but the variation among the countries is very high.

This overall increase in factor income per unit of labour input is to a large extent due to the decrease in labour income. If the labour input had remained the same, the EU-15 results would have decreased significantly and the result for NMS-12 would have shown an increase slightly over 10%.

'	'	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	'
	EU27	140,859	147,801	134,169	134,422	139,975	126,218	128,363	135,053	128,868	111,324
	EU15	125,975	129,779	118,910	119,236	118,801	108,693	110,649	117,388	109,562	94,889
	BE	2,410	2,221	1,949	2,093	2,104	1,892	2,212	2,310	1,623	1,599
	BG	1,864	1,998	1,739	1,635	1,598	1,498	1,286	1,165	1,605	1,309
	CZ	833	1,016	793	764	1,155	1,150	1,150	1,241	1,265	1,041
	DK	2,359	2,855	1,927	1,830	1,970	1,863	1,880	1,800	917	937
	DE	11,996	14,218	10,057	8,957	12,891	11,338	12,007	14,513	13,526	10,522
	EE	161	192	179	138	224	233	233	291	219	168
	IE	3,008	2,864	2,579	2,558	2,641	3,063	2,653	2,916	2,665	2,019
	EL	8,463	8,328	7,998	7,938	7,465	7,510	7,187	7,389	6,849	6,849
	ES	26,050	28,012	26,420	28,542	26,512	23,074	21,966	24,320	22,266	21,020
	FR	25,027	24,782	23,576	22,737	21,960	20,447	22,349	24,250	21,163	16,787
	IT	23,499	23,213	22,085	21,119	21,190	17,897	17,450	16,465	16,322	12,689
	CY	360	394	393	373	362	354	304	292	277	280
	LV	146	185	179	193	318	328	381	344	266	215
	LT	322	273	268	311	434	493	419	598	528	431
	LU	112	111	108	98	97	99	92	97	83	60
	HU	1,983	1,996	1,593	1,498	2,150	2,064	2,128	2,084	2,524	1,727
	MT	65	71	67	63	62	60	59	59	55	59
	NL	7,593	6,822	5,786	6,153	5,474	5,393	6,455	6,299	5,037	4,552
	AT	2,234	2,595	2,358	2,317	2,409	2,303	2,462	2,727	2,572	2,043
	PL	3,696	4,297	3,490	3,239	6,117	5,566	6,145	7,497	7,102	6,796
	PT	2,545	2,748	2,485	2,504	2,620	2,280	2,230	1,986	1,984	1,824
	RO	4,667	6,824	5,651	6,258	7,833	4,970	4,801	3,241	4,627	3,773
	SI	347	310	405	288	419	421	403	429	382	319
	SK	463	487	458	386	444	388	438	462	509	403
	FI	1,987	1,968	1,923	1,897	1,777	1,922	1,833	1,925	1,581	1,591
	SE	1,247	1,317	1,464	1,430	1,283	1,376	1,543	1,678	1,536	1,378
	UK	7,395	7,741	8,260	9,026	8,408	8,235	8,318	8,713	11,398	10,986
	NO	1,948	1,747	1,865	1,797	1,734	1,444	1,289	1,289	1,262	1,164
	CH	3,297	3,012	3,080	2,801	3,080	2,815	2,720	2,801	2,928	2,691
	NMS12	14,884	18,022	15,259	15,186	21,174	17,525	17,714	17,665	19,306	16,435

Data source

Under construction.

Further Eurostat information

Publications

• Eurostat Newsrelease 186/2009, 18 December 2009 - First estimates for 2009 - EU27 real agricultural income per worker down by 12.2%

See also

Agricultural income per worker

Agricultural output, price indices and income