The Commission has adopted the Financing Decision and Work Programme 2019 for the implementation of the European statistical programme 2013-2020 on 14 February 2019.

Annex 1: Work Programme 2019 for the European Statistical Programme 2013-2020

Annex 2: Strategic Priorities

Annex 3: List of activities and outputs

Annex 4: Catalogue of statistical products

A  vacant Seconded National Expert post at Eurostat has just been published at Eurostat  - Directorate C: Macroeconomic statistics , Unit ESTAT.C.4: Price statistics. Purchasing power parities. Housing statistics

ESTAT unit C4 provides the official measures of inflation for the euro area and the EU, i.e. the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices, the House Price Index and the measures of price level comparisons across countries, i.e. Purchasing Power Parities (PPPs) for 37 participating EU and non-EU countries. The unit is responsible for a high profile area and its teams work and deliver to tight deadlines.

The post is within the PPP team. Several PPP surveys are organised each year to collect prices for comparable products in all participating countries. These data are used by Eurostat to calculate annual PPPs, which are used for example to compare GDP per inhabitant for the countries concerned. The post involves tasks related to the co-ordination of PPP surveys, the calculation of PPPs, the management of contractors, the documentation of production processes and the quality control of PPPs. Most tasks are carried out within the PPP production environment which consists of purpose-built web tools managing a central database.

The post offers the opportunity to work closely with colleagues in national statistical offices, the OECD, the World Bank and Commission staff.

Candidates should send their application according to the Europass CV format in English, French or German only to the Permanent Representation / Diplomatic Mission to the EU of their country, which will forward the applications to the competent services of the Commission within the deadline fixed by the latter. Not respecting this procedure or deadlines will automatically invalidate the application.

Deadline for applications is 25 March 2019.

See the full notice here

• Integrated frameworks for economic accounting standards, by Paul McCarthy
• Expanding the coverage of illegal economic activities in national accounts, by Ilcho Bechev
• QDR methodology: understanding trade flows in the EU, by Pedro Martins Ferreira
• Addendum to ‘Output growth and inflation across space and time’, by W. Erwin Diewert and Kevin J. Fox

A  vacant Seconded National Expert post at Eurostat has just been published at Eurostat  - Directorate C: Macroeconomic statistics , Unit ESTAT.C.4: Price statistics. Purchasing power parities. Housing statistics

ESTAT unit C4 provides the official measures of inflation for the euro area and the EU, i.e. the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices, the House Price Index and the measures of price level comparisons across countries, i.e. Purchasing Power Parities (PPPs) for 37 participating EU and non-EU countries. The unit is responsible for a high profile area and its teams work and deliver to tight deadlines. The post is within the PPP team. Several PPP surveys are organised each year to collect prices for comparable products in all participating countries. These data are used by Eurostat to calculate annual PPPs, which are used for example to compare GDP per inhabitant for the countries concerned. The post involves tasks related to the co-ordination of PPP surveys, the calculation of PPPs, the management of contractors, the documentation of production processes and the quality control of PPPs. Most tasks are carried out within the PPP production environment which consists of purpose-built web tools managing a central database. The post offers the opportunity to work closely with colleagues in national statistical offices, the OECD, the World Bank and Commission staff.

Candidates should send their application according to the Europass CV format in English, French or German only to the Permanent Representation / Diplomatic Mission to the EU of their country, which will forward the applications to the competent services of the Commission within the deadline fixed by the latter. Not respecting this procedure or deadlines will automatically invalidate the application.

Deadline for applications is 25 January 2019.

See the full notice here

Destatis launched two initiatives to mark European Statistics Day

To mark the European Statistics Day, Destatis carried out two measures. First of all, Destatis launched the European Statistics Competition for 2019 and began its search for promising teams of innovative and statistically minded pupils.

In addition, the importance of official statistics for society and good governance was highlighted via a tweet and an online message. One message was a reminder of how important high quality price data is to determine the inflation rate and to provide a foundation upon which to base wage negotiations. Another message highlighted the importance of reliable GDP data, which in turn for instance decides which EU regions receive additional funding.

Vacancies for Seconded National Experts at Eurostat have just been published. Deadline for applications is 18/12/2018.

- Eurostat/Unit B5 - Data and metadata services and standards

We propose a challenging position for standardisation and business process modernisation of European statistics in Eurostat unit B5: Data and metadata services and standards.

Under the supervision of the team leader in the unit, the candidate will be involved in many statistical business process redesign projects implementing SDMX and other standards, and support the use of the SDMX IT infrastructure and IT tools for improving/rationalising statistical business processes.

These projects are organised at the level of the European Statistical System or together with international partners such as the UN or the OECD. The services to be provided require close collaboration with the Eurostat production units, with international partners or with other stakeholders being active in this work area (e.g. the SDMX working groups).

The successful candidate will also be asked to prepare project/working documents, promote and present work results to working group meetings, task forces etc. and contribute to SDMX workshops and seminars.

See the full notice here

- Eurostat/Unit G1 - Coordination and infrastructure development

G1's mission is to design and co-ordinate the infrastructure development for modernised European business statistics. The candidate would support the work ongoing related to addressing the challenges of globalisation on business statistics, especially related to the correct reflection of the activities and understanding of Multinational Enterprise Groups (MNEs). The ongoing work currently consists of creating a European System of Interoperable Statistical Business Registers, profiling of large MNEs and supporting the NSIs in implementing units, which ensure the consistency of business statistics across the different statistical domains (so called Large Cases Units, LCUs). Additionally, further development and maintenance of the business statistics methodology, taking into consideration the impacts of globalisation, would be needed.

The successful candidate will, under the supervision of the responsible Commission official:

- contribute to the development of a network of Large Cases Units; contribute to the development of the future strategy on addressing MNEs - in particular Profiling;

- assist the Member States in implementing profiling activities and liaise with other external and internal stakeholders in supporting the profiling of  the most significant MNEs operating in Europe;

- coordinate and draft enhancements to business statistics methodologies ( the European Business Statistics manual) to take into account needs for further guidance related to globalisation impacts.

See the full notice here

Guðrún is a 23 year old Icelandic woman and Antonio García a 25 year old man from Spain. They are in a new relationship and have just moved in together. For them, some statistical facts about each other’s country can be helpful. The video explains some facts about young people in Iceland and Spain, e.g. the proportion of those who have flown the nest, smoke, socialise etc. These statistics will probably not predict their future marital status but it is likely that they will affect their relationship in one way or another.