Archive:Services statistics - short-term indicators

Data from November 2016. Most recent data: Further Eurostat information, Main tables and Database. Planned article update: November 2017.

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.

Main statistical findings

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

Services turnover (in current price terms) fell by 8.5 % in the EU-28 in 2009 compared with the year before, but rebounded in 2010 and 2011 increasing by 4.8 % and 5.5 % respectively. Growth continued in each of the next four years (2012–2015), although at a more modest pace, rising by 0.9 %, 2.5 %, 1.6 % and 0.7 % respectively.

Having peaked in various quarters of 2008, EU-28 turnover for all six of the services shown in Figure 1 reached a low point at some stage between the second quarter of 2009 and the first quarter of 2010. From these lows, the strongest growth in turnover across the different services through to the second quarter of 2016 was recorded for administrative and support services (41.3 %), followed by professional, scientific and technical activities (25.7 %). Transportation and storage services and accommodation and food services also recorded relatively high growth rates, as their sales rose by more than one fifth, while the growth rates recorded for distributive trades and for information and communication services were within the range of 14–15 %.

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 rebounded to their pre-crisis levels by the start of 2011, while for information and communication services and for professional, scientific and technical activities, the pre-crisis peak was passed in the final quarter of 2011. By contrast, it was not until the third quarter of 2013 that sales for accommodation and food services or for distributive trades passed their pre-crisis peak.

Latest annual turnover developments

Among service activities (at the NACE Rev. 2 section level), the fastest rates of turnover growth in 2015 in the EU-28 were recorded for business-oriented services, transportation and storage, and for accommodation and food services: turnover for information and communication activities grew by 5.5 % in 2015, while there were slightly smaller increases for administrative and support services and for professional, scientific and technical activities (both grew by 5.1 %), as well as accommodation and food services (5.0 %). The pace of growth was somewhat slower for transport and storage (3.3 %), while distributive trades was the only one of the service activities shown to report a fall in sales (-1.6 %).

The developments for services turnover in 2015 varied greatly among the EU Member States. There were seven where a reduction in services turnover was reported when compared with 2014. Among these, the fastest declines were recorded in the United Kingdom and Estonia; where sales contracted by 3.1 % and 3.0 % respectively. By contrast, turnover rose by at least 6.0 % in Hungary, Romania, Malta and Ireland (peaking in the latter two, at 7.7 %); Turkey recorded an even higher rate of increase (up 9.6 %).

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 2015 for: transportation and storage in Malta and Romania; accommodation and food services in Lithuania and Hungary; information and communication activities in Lithuania and Romania; professional, scientific and technical activities in Malta; and administrative and supporting activities in Greece, Hungary, the Netherlands, Romania and Slovenia. There were positive rates of change for the growth of turnover for all six services shown in Table 1 in Germany, Spain, France, Hungary, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia and Sweden, as well as in Turkey. By contrast, in 2015 turnover fell for five out of six of these services in Portugal, for four out of six in Greece, and for three out of six in Bulgaria and Estonia.

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 2012, the volume of sales in retail trade for the EU-28 fell every year, except for 2010, when growth of 0.4 % was recorded (see Table 2); this was followed by no change in the volume of sales index in 2013. Consequently the 2.0 % growth rate that was 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 3.8 % 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 November and December 2012. The latest developments show an overall increase of 9.7 % in the volume of sales between the end of 2012 and August 2016 (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 December 2012 to August 2016. There were two activities with relatively high overall sales growth during this period: the retail sale of computers and telecoms in specialised stores (where turnover rose by 13.8 %), and the retail sale of medical goods, cosmetics and toiletries in specialised stores (13.6 %). The rates of change for the other retail activities were relatively uniform, ranging from 5.5 % for the retailing of food, beverages and tobacco to 7.7 % for the retailing of other household equipment in specialised stores.

Greece was the only EU Member State to report that its volume of sales for retail trade fell between 2014 and 2015 (-1.4 %). By contrast, the volume of sales increased by more than 7.0 % in 2015 in three of the Member States, with the largest increase in Romania (8.8 %), followed by Luxembourg (7.8 %) and Sweden (7.1 %).

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 as well as sea and coastal water transport. Since the start of 2006 (the beginning of each time series), EU-28 producer prices for telecommunications followed a steady downward path; over a period of almost 10 years, prices fell by a total of 31.0 %. 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 magnitude of the fall and subsequent rise in prices related to the financial and economic crisis was greater, while there was also another rapid fall in prices that started in 2015 and continued up to the most recent period available (2016 quarter 2). The net impact of these distinct movements was that the producer price index for sea and coastal water transport services was 6.4 % lower in the second quarter of 2016 than it had been in the first quarter of 2006.

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), see:

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), see:

Trade and services (sts_ts)

Wholesale and retail trade (NACE G) (sts_wrt)

Turnover and volume of sales index (sts_wrt_ts)

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