Archive:Wholesale trade statistics - NACE Rev. 2
- Data from April 2013. Most recent data: Further Eurostat information, Main tables and Database.
This Statistics Explained article is outdated and has been archived - for recent articles on structural business statistics see here.' This article presents an overview of statistics for the wholesale trade sector in the European Union (EU), as covered by NACE Rev. 2 Division 46. In the supply chain, wholesalers are located between producers and users, providing know-how and knowledge in markets for which they have expertise. Wholesalers can provide a range of services from basic storage and break of bulk, sorting, grading and logistics to pre- and post-production operations (for instance, labelling, packaging, bottling and installation).
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(% share of sectoral total) - Source: Eurostat (sbs_na_dt_r2)
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(% share of sectoral total) - Source: Eurostat (sbs_sc_dt_r2)
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Main statistical findings
Structural profile
By most measures the wholesale trade sector (Division 46) was one of the largest sectors within the EU-27’s non-financial business economy (Sections B to J and L to N and Division 95), particularly when measured in terms of output. Wholesale trade turnover was EUR 5 258 billion in 2010, equivalent to 22.2 % of the non-financial business economy total; value added in 2009 was EUR 549.9 billion, 10.1 % of the non-financial business economy total. The very high share of turnover reflects the nature of wholesaling, buying and reselling goods often in very large quantities. The 10.4 million strong workforce in the EU-27’s wholesale trade sector in 2010 accounted for 7.9 % of the persons employed in the non-financial business economy, while the 1.8 million wholesale trade enterprises contributed a broadly similar share (8.2 %) of the non-financial business economy enterprise population. As such, the wholesale trade sector can be characterised as having a large number of enterprises, of an average size in employment terms, with a slightly above average value added share and a particularly high level of turnover. Within distributive trades (Section G), the wholesale trade sector contributed 59.3 % of turnover, 49.6 % of value added (2009 data), 31.8 % of employment, and 28.7 % of the distributive trades enterprise population in 2010.
The apparent labour productivity of the EU-27’s wholesale trade sector in 2010 was EUR 53.6 thousand per person employed, above the non-financial business economy average of EUR 44.8 thousand per person employed and more than 50 % above the distributive trades average of EUR 35.0 thousand per person employed. Average personnel costs per employee within the EU-27’s wholesale trade sector were EUR 36.0 thousand, which was also higher than the non-financial business economy average (EUR 30.9 thousand) and the distributive trades average (EUR 25.9 thousand). The wage-adjusted labour productivity ratio combines the two previous indicators and shows the extent to which value added per person employed covers average personnel costs per employee. Due to the particularly high productivity and only slightly elevated average personnel costs the EU-27’s wholesale trade sector in 2010 had a higher wage-adjusted labour productivity ratio (148.9 %) than the non-financial business economy average (144.8 %) or the distributive trades average (135.0 %).
By contrast, the very high turnover for the wholesale trade sector weighed down on the gross operating rate (which is the relation between the gross operating surplus and turnover), such that this averaged just 4.5 % across the EU-27 in 2010, approximately half the non-financial business economy average (10.1 %) and slightly below the distributive trades average (5.0 %). Wholesale trade had the third lowest level of operating profitability (using this measure) among the NACE divisions within the EU-27’s non-financial business economy, one place below motor trades (Division 45).
Sectoral analysis
Among the activities that compose the wholesale trade sector, own-account wholesale trade (Groups 46.2 to 46.9) accounted for 93.2 % of the EU-27’s wholesale trade value added in 2009, while wholesale on a fee or contract basis (Group 46.1) accounted for the remainder; in terms of turnover the share for own-account wholesale trade was 95.5 %.
The largest own-account wholesale trade subsector in the EU-27, in value added terms, was the wholesale trade of household goods (Group 46.4) which contributed 28.1 % of the sectoral total in 2009; this sector had the second largest workforce with a 23.2 % share of wholesale trade employment in 2010. The subsector for other specialised wholesale trade (Group 46.7) had the second highest value added share (21.6 % in 2009) and a fractionally lower employment share (21.7 %) than for household goods wholesaling — see Figure 1. Only two other subsectors contributed more than one tenth of wholesale trade value added or employment, namely food, beverages and tobacco wholesaling (Group 46.3) and other machinery, equipment and supplies wholesaling (Group 46.6).
The relatively high level of apparent labour productivity (value added per person employed) for the EU-27’s wholesale trade sector was pulled upwards by information and communication (ICT) equipment wholesaling (Group 46.5), household goods wholesaling, other machinery, equipment and supplies wholesaling, and other specialised wholesaling. Among these four subsectors with higher than average apparent labour productivity, the highest level of productivity was for ICT equipment wholesaling (EUR 79.7 thousand per person employed, based on data for 24 EU Member States in 2010), while values of at least EUR 60.0 thousand per person employed were recorded for household goods wholesaling and for other machinery, equipment and supplies wholesaling. The four remaining subsectors within the wholesale trade sector each recorded apparent labour productivity below the wholesale trade average, although their productivity levels were above the distributive trades average; the lowest value was EUR 40.0 thousand per person employed for non-specialised wholesale trade (Group 46.9).
In general, average personnel costs were quite different from one wholesale trade subsector to another. The EU-27’s ICT equipment wholesaling subsector, which had the highest apparent labour productivity of all wholesale trade subsectors, also had the highest average personnel costs, EUR 51.4 thousand per employee (2009 data). The next highest level for this indicator was nearly EUR 10 thousand lower, at EUR 42.2 thousand per employee for other machinery, equipment and supplies wholesaling in 2010. At the other end of the ranking, there were three subsectors that registered average personnel costs that were below the non-financial business economy average of EUR 30.9 thousand per employee, namely agricultural raw materials and live animals wholesaling (Group 46.2), food, beverages and tobacco wholesaling and non-specialised wholesale trade; average personnel costs for the last of these was also below the average for distributive trades.
In terms of the wage-adjusted labour productivity ratio, one wholesale trade subsector stood out, namely, wholesale on a fee or contract basis where the wage-adjusted labour productivity ratio within the EU-27 was 115.4 % in 2010; this was the only wholesale trade subsector with a ratio below the 135 % average for the whole of distributive trades. For the seven own-account wholesale trade subsectors, wage-adjusted labour productivity ratios ranged from 140 % for other machinery, equipment and supplies wholesaling (which was just below the non-financial business economy average) to 160 % for three subsectors: wholesaling of agricultural raw materials and live animals; other specialised wholesale; and non-specialised wholesale trade.
For the gross operating rate, the position of the wholesale on a fee or contract basis subsector was reversed as it recorded the third highest rate (10.2 %) among the EU-27’s wholesale trade subsectors in 2010, in line with the non-financial business economy average (10.1 %). Among the own-account wholesale trade subsectors, the gross operating rate ranged from 6.1 % for household goods wholesaling to 2.8 % for other specialised wholesale trade.
Country analysis
Germany’s wholesale trade sector generated EUR 121.9 billion of value added in 2010, the highest figure among the EU Member States, ahead of France (EUR 77.2 billion), the United Kingdom (EUR 68.7 billion) and Italy (EUR 58.2 billion). On the basis of a comparison of value added, Italy was the largest Member State in the wholesale on a fee or contract basis subsector, followed by France and the United Kingdom. For non-specialised wholesale trade, the United Kingdom had the highest level of value added, followed by Poland and Germany. In the remaining six subsectors, Germany was the largest Member State, in value added terms, while France was the second largest in most, but not all, of these activities. For the wholesale of agricultural raw materials and live animals, the Netherlands was the second largest Member State, while for the wholesale of information and communication equipment the United Kingdom was the second largest Member State, followed by the Netherlands in third place.
The Netherlands was the most specialised EU Member State for wholesale trade, generating 13.7 % of its non-financial business economy value added in this sector in 2010; note that the share was even higher (16.8 %) in Switzerland. The least specialised Member States were Finland and the United Kingdom, where the wholesale trade sector contributed 7.6 % and 7.4 % of national non-financial business economy value added; in Norway the share was even lower (6.0 %).
Wholesale on a fee or contract basis was particularly important in Slovakia and Slovenia, where it contributed 2.9 % and 2.4 % respectively of non-financial business economy value added in 2010, and this subsector was also relatively important in Italy where it contributed 1.5 %. A number of other national specialisations stand out: Poland and Slovakia for non-specialised wholesale trade (as well as Croatia); Ireland, the Netherlands and Luxembourg for ICT equipment wholesaling; the Netherlands, Bulgaria and Lithuania for agricultural raw materials and live animals wholesaling; Bulgaria and Latvia for other specialised wholesale trade. Among the non-member countries shown in Tables 4a and 4b, Switzerland generated a relatively large amount of value added for the wholesale of household goods and other specialised wholesale subsectors, while Croatia recorded relatively high value added in non-specialised wholesale trade.
Among the EU Member States, wage-adjusted labour productivity ratios for wholesale trade in 2010 ranged from 122.7 % in Spain to 209.3 % in Poland with Latvia (250.8 %), Romania (252.3 %), Bulgaria (253.8 %), and Luxembourg (259.8 %) above this range. The gross operating rate of the wholesale trade sector ranged from 2.6 % in Luxembourg and 3.2 % in France and Estonia to 6.4 % in Poland, 6.7 % in Slovakia and 6.9 % in Ireland. In all of the Member States, the gross operating rate for wholesale trade was below the non-financial business economy average in 2010. However, when compared with the distributive trades average, several Member States recorded higher gross operating rates for wholesale trade, most notably Cyprus and Ireland.
Size class analysis
In value added terms, the contribution of each of the four size classes shown in Figure 2 to the EU-27’s wholesale trade total in 2010 was very similar, ranging from 22.3 % for micro enterprises (employing fewer than 10 persons) to 27.9 % for small enterprises (employing 10 to 49 persons). However, there was a greater variety when measured in employment terms, where micro and small enterprises together employed 60.1 % of the workforce and the share of large enterprises (employing 250 or more persons) was under one fifth (18.8 %) of the total workforce. These differences are reflected in the apparent labour productivity ratios shown in Table 5, which ranged from EUR 37.6 thousand per person employed for micro enterprises to EUR 71.7 thousand per person employed for large enterprises.
Among the EU Member States, the employment share of micro enterprises peaked in 2010 at 58.2 % for Italy; this was the only Member State where micro enterprises employed more than half of the wholesale trade workforce. Nevertheless, micro enterprises employed more than two fifths of those working in the wholesale trade sector in Estonia, Portugal and Slovenia. In Cyprus, Lithuania, Bulgaria and Latvia, small enterprises employed one third or more of the workforce. Large enterprises employed less than 10.0 % of the workforce in four of the Member States, although their share of the total number of persons employed rose to at least one quarter of the workforce in Germany, Finland, France and the United Kingdom.
Data sources and availability
The analysis presented in this article is based on the main dataset for structural business statistics (SBS) and size class data, all of which are published annually.
The main series provides information for each EU Member State as well as a number of non-member countries at a detailed level according to the activity classification NACE. Data are available for a wide range of variables.
In structural business statistics, size classes are generally defined by the number of persons employed. A limited set of the standard structural business statistics variables (for example, the number of enterprises, turnover, persons employed and value added) are analysed by size class, mostly down to the three-digit (group) level of NACE. The main size classes used in this article for presenting the results are:
- small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs): with 1 to 249 persons employed, further divided into;
- micro enterprises: with less than 10 persons employed;
- small enterprises: with 10 to 49 persons employed;
- medium-sized enterprises: with 50 to 249 persons employed;
- large enterprises: with 250 or more persons employed.
Context
This article presents an overview of statistics for the wholesale trade sector in the EU, as covered by NACE Rev. 2 Division 46. This division includes wholesale trade for own-account or on a fee or contract basis (commission trade) related to domestic wholesale trade as well as international wholesale trade (import/export). Wholesale is the resale (sale without transformation) of new and used goods to retailers, industrial, commercial, institutional or professional users, or other wholesalers; alternatively, it may involve acting as an agent or broker trading (buying or selling) merchandise with such clients. The principal types of businesses included are merchant wholesalers, in other words, wholesalers who take title to the goods they sell, such as wholesale merchants or jobbers, industrial distributors, exporters, importers, and cooperative buying associations; also included are sales branches and sales offices (but not retail stores) that are maintained by producers apart from their production operations for the purpose of marketing their products and that do not merely take orders to be filled by direct shipments from the production operations. Also included are merchandise and commodity brokers, commission merchants and agents and assemblers, buyers and cooperative associations engaged in the marketing of farm products.
Wholesalers frequently physically assemble, sort and grade goods in large lots, break bulk, repack and redistribute in smaller lots (for example, pharmaceuticals), store, refrigerate, deliver and install goods, engage in sales promotion or label design for their customers.
The activity is structured by first separating wholesalers on a fee or contract basis, and then distinguishing wholesalers based on their specialisation in terms of the different types of products that are for wholesale, with a final activity for wholesalers that sell a range of products and are therefore considered as unspecialised.
This NACE division is composed of eight groups:
- wholesale on a fee or contract basis (Group 46.1);
- wholesale of agricultural raw materials and live animals (Group 46.2);
- wholesale of food, beverages and tobacco (Group 46.3);
- wholesale of household goods (Group 46.4);
- wholesale of ICT equipment (Group 46.5);
- wholesale of other machinery, equipment and supplies (Group 46.6);
- other specialised wholesale (Group 46.7);
- non-specialised wholesale trade (Group 46.9).
The information presented in this article does not cover the wholesale of motor vehicles, motorcycles and their accessories (included as part of motor trades, Division 45), the renting and leasing of goods (Division 77), or the packing of solid goods and bottling of liquid or gaseous goods, including blending and filtering for third parties (which forms part of office administrative, office support and other business support activities, Division 82).
See also
- Distributive trades
- Other analyses of the business economy by NACE Rev. 2 sector
- Structural business statistics introduced
Further Eurostat information
Publications
- European business - facts and figures (online publication)
- Key figures on European Business – with a special feature section on SMEs – 2011 edition
Main tables
Database
- SBS – trade (sbs_dt)
- Annual detailed enterprise statistics – trade (sbs_na_dt)
- Annual detailed enterprise statistics for trade (NACE Rev. 2 G) (sbs_na_dt_r2)
- SMEs - Annual enterprise statistics by size class – trade (sbs_sc_dt)
- Distributive trades by employment size class (NACE Rev. 2 G) (sbs_sc_dt_r2)
- Distributive trades by size class of turnover (NACE Rev. 2 G) (sbs_sctrn_dt_r2)
- Breakdown of turnover by product - trade (dt_cpa)
- Turnover by product type for wholesale trade (NACE Rev. 2 G46) (dt_cpa_n46_r2)
- Annual detailed enterprise statistics – trade (sbs_na_dt)
- SBS - regional data - all activities (sbs_r)
- SBS data by NUTS 2 regions and NACE Rev. 2 (from 2008 onwards) (sbs_r_nuts06_r2)
Dedicated section
Source data for tables and figures (MS Excel)
Other information
- Decision 1578/2007/EC of 11 December 2007 on the Community Statistical Programme 2008 to 2012
- Regulation 295/2008 of 11 March 2008 concerning structural business statistics