Archive:Services statistics - short-term indicators

Data from September 2015. Most recent data: Further Eurostat information, Main tables and Database. Planned article update: November 2016.

This article examines recent statistics in relation to developments for service activities in the European Union (EU). Short-term business statistics (STS) are provided in the form of indices that allow the rapid assessment of the economic climate within services, providing a first assessment of recent developments for a range of activities.

Traditionally, short-term business statistics were concentrated on industrial and construction activities, and to a lesser extent retail trade. Since the middle of the 1990s, major developments in official statistics within the EU have seen short-term data collection efforts focus increasingly on services.

Figure 1: Index of turnover, selected service activities, EU-28, 2005–15 (¹)
(2010 = 100)
Source: Eurostat (sts_trtu_q) and (sts_setu_q)

Table 1: Annual growth rates for the index of turnover, selected services, 2013–14 (¹)
(%)
Source: Eurostat (sts_trtu_a) and (sts_setu_a)

Table 2: Annual growth rates for the volume of sales index, retail trade, 2004–14 (¹)
(%)
Source: Eurostat (sts_trtu_a)

Figure 2: Volume of sales index, selected retail trade activities, EU-28, 2005–15 (¹)
(2010 = 100)
Source: Eurostat (sts_trtu_m)

Figure 3: Producer price indices, transport and communications services, EU-28, 2006–15 (¹)
(2010 = 100)
Source: Eurostat (sts_sepp_q)

Figure 4: Producer price indices, selected business services, EU-28, 2006–15 (¹)
(2010 = 100)
Source: Eurostat (sts_sepp_q)

Main statistical findings

Turnover: impact of the financial and economic crisis and subsequent recovery

Services turnover (in current price terms) fell by 8.8 % in the EU-28 in 2009 compared with the year before, but rebounded in 2010 and 2011 increasing by 4.7 % and 5.0 % respectively. Growth continued in 2012, 2013 and 2014, but at a more modest pace (rising by 0.4 %, 0.9 % and 1.4 %).

Having peaked in various quarters of 2008, EU-28 turnover for all six of the services shown in Figure 1 reached a low point in the second or third quarter of 2009, or the first quarter of 2010. From these lows, the strongest growth in turnover across the different services through to the second quarter of 2015 was recorded for administrative and support services (30.3 %), followed by transportation and storage services (21.4 %). Professional, scientific and technical activities, distributive trades and accommodation and food services also recorded double-digit growth between their mid-crisis lows and their latest levels (second quarter of 2015), with turnover rising by 16.9 %, 14.0 % and 13.2 % respectively. The rate of change for information and communication services was a more modest 9.8 %.

Despite the recent growth recorded for all six of these services activities, as can be seen from Figure 1, the losses in turnover resulting from the financial and economic crisis were more quickly recovered for some services in the EU-28 than for others. EU-28 turnover indices for administrative and support services and information and communication services rebounded to their pre-crisis levels during 2011; for professional, scientific and technical activities and transportation and storage services the pre-crisis peak was passed in the second and fourth quarter of 2013 respectively; accommodation and food services passed its pre-crisis peak in the third quarter of 2014. By contrast, the latest turnover index (second quarter of 2015) for distributive trades remained, marginally below its level recorded prior to the crisis.

Latest annual turnover developments

Among service activities (at the NACE Rev. 2 section level), the fastest rates of turnover growth in 2014 in the EU-28 were recorded for business-oriented services, transportation and storage and for accommodation and food services: turnover for administrative and support services grew by 6.1 %, that for transportation and storage by 5.0 %, while professional, scientific and technical activities and accommodation and food services both reported turnover up by 3.3 %. There was slower growth recorded for information and communication activities (1.6 %) and for distributive trades (0.2 %).

The developments for services turnover in 2014 varied greatly among the EU-28 Member States. Bulgaria reported a substantial fall in services turnover compared with 2013, while there were smaller declines in about a quarter of the EU Member States. By contrast, relatively high growth was recorded for Hungary.

Table 1 provides an analysis of the two latest rates of change for turnover for each of the services NACE sections covered by short-term business statistics. Growth rates in excess of 10.0 % were recorded in 2014 for: transportation and storage in Hungary; accommodation and food services in Hungary, Greece and Ireland; professional, scientific and technical activities in Estonia, Hungary, Malta and Lithuania; and administrative and supporting activities in Belgium, Poland and the United Kingdom. There were positive rates of change for the growth of turnover for all six services in Germany, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Sweden. By contrast, turnover fell for four out of six of these services in Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Cyprus, Austria and Portugal in 2014.

Volume of retail sales

While turnover shows sales in current prices, the volume of sales indicates the situation once price changes have been removed. Between 2008 and 2013 the volume of sales in retail trade for the EU-28 fell every year, except for 2010, when growth of 0.3 % was recorded (see Table 2) and consequently the 1.9 % growth recorded for 2014 was the highest since 2007. A monthly series (see Figure 2) shows that the EU-28’s volume of retail sales peaked in February 2008 and fell by a total of 4.3 % through to March 2009. The volume of retail sales remained relatively stable between March 2009 and March 2012 and then declined to a new low in December 2012. The latest developments show an increase of 5.9 % in the volume of sales between the end of 2012 and July 2015 (the latest period for which data are available at the time of writing).

All parts of retail trade shown in Figure 2 experienced an increase in their volume of sales during the period from April 2013 to June or July 2015 (the latest period available varies between the different services). The rates of change were relatively uniform, ranging from 4.1 % for the retailing of food, beverages and tobacco to 8.3 % for the retailing of computers and telecommunications in specialised stores.

In 2014, the volume of sales for retail trade fell slightly in five of the EU Member States, with the reduction in turnover exceeding 0.5 % only in Finland (-1.2 %). By contrast, the volume of sales increased by 4.0 % or more in 2014 in eight Member States, with the largest increase in Luxembourg (8.4 %), following on from annual increases in excess of 20.0 % in both 2011 and 2012 and a 13.4 % increase in 2013.

Service prices

Among the services for which an EU-28 price index is shown in Figures 3 and 4 (note that both figures are shown with the same scale) two stand out as having developments which deviate from the general pattern — telecommunications, and sea and coastal water transport, the latter particularly in the first half of the time period that is shown. Since the start of 2006 (the beginning of each time series), EU-28 producer prices for telecommunications followed a steady downward path; in just over nine years, they fell by a total of 30.4 %. Producer prices for sea and coastal water transport displayed a far higher degree of volatility than the indices for the other services shown in Figures 3 and 4, in particular, the fall and subsequent rise in prices related to the financial and economic crisis. The net impact of these movements was that prices in the second quarter of 2015 were 9.1 % higher than in the first quarter of 2006. Most of the other services recorded overall price increases in a range of 10 %–17 % during the nine years shown, with air transport producer prices increasing at a faster pace (up 22.8 %).

Data sources and availability

Short-term business statistics (STS) on services are compiled within the same methodological framework as short-term statistics on industry and construction. The article on short-term developments in industry and construction provides additional information on a variety of subjects, including: the STS Regulation; the different forms of presentation of indices, namely unadjusted (gross data), calendar adjusted and seasonally adjusted; the implementation of NACE Rev. 2; and the five-yearly exercise to rebase STS indices to a new base year.

The turnover index and the employment index are compiled for retail trade and for other services. For retail trade one additional indicator is provided, namely the volume index of retail sales, which is effectively a deflated turnover index. Furthermore, producer price indices have been developed for a selection of services in recent years and work is ongoing to produce a production index for services.

The index of turnover shows the development of sales in value terms. Note that prices for some services have actually been falling, perhaps due to market liberalisation and increased competition (for example, telecommunications and other technology-related activities). In such cases, the growth rates observed for turnover value indices for some activities would be even greater in volume terms.

Retail trade indices have particular importance because of the role of retail trade as an interface between producers and final customers: as such, turnover and volume of sales indices may be used to provide an early indication of the development of final demand by households. The volume measure of the retail trade turnover index is more commonly referred to as the index of the volume of (retail) sales. To eliminate the price effect on turnover in retail trade, a deflator of sales is used. This deflator is an index with a similar methodology to that of a producer price index, but it is adapted specifically for retail trade; it reflects price changes in the goods sold rather than those in the retail sales service provided.

Context

Some of the most important STS indicators are a set of principal European economic indicators (PEEIs) that are essential to the European Central Bank (ECB) for conducting monetary policy within the euro area. Three PEEIs concern services short-term business statistics, namely indices covering: the volume of sales in retail trade, turnover in other services and producer prices of other services.

Further Eurostat information

Publications

News releases and Statistics in Focus

Main tables

Short-term business statistics (t_sts)

Trade and services (t_sts_ts)

Wholesale and retail trade (NACE G) (t_sts_wrt)

Services (t_sts_ser)

Database

Short-term business statistics (sts)

Trade and services (sts_ts)

Wholesale and retail trade (NACE G) (sts_wrt)

Services (sts_os)

Turnover in services (sts_os_t)

Service producer prices (SPPI) (sts_os_pp)

Dedicated section

Short-term business statistics

Methodology / Metadata

Source data for tables and figures (MS Excel)

Services short-term indicators: tables and figures

External links