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	14,945	14,290	13,556	13,297	12,778	12,688	12,381	11,772	11,484	11,223
EU15	6,511	6,456	6,282	6,163	6,076	5,928	5,835	5,673	5,536	5,424
BE	75	75	75	73	72	70	68	66	65	64
BG	771	740	792	792	792	626	560	494	441	400
CZ	166	158	152	170	164	152	148	138	135	134
DK	76	76	72	70	67	63	61	58	57	56
DE	685	659	633	610	592	583	568	554	545	536
EE	65	58	56	39	38	38	37	33	31	29
IE	153	153	158	164	160	149	153	150	148	147
EL	586	578	571	620	613	607	591	575	573	571
ES	1,102	1,099	1,069	1,023	1,032	1,017	1,013	998	946	909
FR	1,028	1,010	992	975	955	936	915	895	876	858
IT	1,383	1,396	1,350	1,288	1,284	1,242	1,257	1,213	1,186	1,164
CY	31	30	30	31	30	29	27	26	26	26
LV	149	145	143	141	140	138	123	107	97	92
LT	187	171	181	187	165	174	166	158	151	147
LU	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4
HU	676	643	647	582	554	522	481	459	437	441
MT	5	5	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4
NL	220	211	208	204	195	194	190	187	184	182
AT	177	174	173	170	169	165	160	157	155	153
PL	2,495	2,524	2,267	2,279	2,284	2,292	2,292	2,299	2,299	2,214
PT	503	506	480	479	453	429	402	374	360	344
RO	3,645	3,121	2,765	2,696	2,336	2,596	2,527	2,205	2,152	2,148
SI	104	107	106	96	90	90	89	84	83	82
SK	143	132	132	119	105	99	91	91	90	82
FI	111	109	107	106	103	96	93	91	89	87
SE	77	76	75	74	77	76	75	69	66	63
UK	334	329	315	301	300	298	287	281	285	290
NO	72	70	69	67	65	66	63	61	60	58
CH	101	99	95	93	92	89	89	86	86	85
NMS12	8,434	7,834	7,274	7,135	6,702	6,760	6,545	6,100	5,947	5,799

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