Colombia (1)

Title of the survey

Muestra Mensual Manufacturera (Monthly Sample in Manufacturing).

Organization responsible

Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadística (DANE).

Periodicity of the survey

Monthly.

Objectives of the survey

To provide indicators and changes in employment, wages and salaries, hours worked, production and sales.

Main labour topics covered by the survey

Employment, wages and salaries (earnings), hours worked and production.

Reference period

For employment: the month. For earnings and hours worked: the pay period (the month or the week).

Coverage of the survey

Geographical

The whole country.

Industrial

Manufacturing.

Establishments

Establishments with ten or more workers.

Persons

All employees.

Occupations

Not relevant.

Concepts and definitions

Employment

Employees refer to persons who perform paid work in the establishment during the reference period. Workers on unpaid leave, on military service, pensioners and members of the board of directors of the enterprises who are paid exclusively for their attendance at meetings, who render occasional services to the establishment and whose remuneration is a fee, are excluded. Home workers are also excluded. A distinction is made between:

Earnings

Wages and salaries mean the fixed or ordinary remuneration paid to workers for services rendered during the reference period, before deduction of sums to be withheld at source, for social security, trade union dues, the employees' fund, etc. The following are included: basic wages and salaries, extra pay and permanent monthly allowances (for rises in the cost of living, working conditions, risks etc.); travel expenses; payment to piece workers or production bonuses, payment for overtime or work on obligatory days of rest, at night or on holidays; sickness or maternity leave paid for directly by the employer, commissions or bonuses on sales and increased production and travel allowances where these are constant. Wages and salaries include only those amounts on the basis of which social benefits are paid. Information is also collected separately regarding social benefits arising during the reference period, i.e. obligatory, special, agreed-upon payments other than wages or salaries made by the employer to the workers employed. These include: the employer's contribution to social security and to the various compensation funds, statutory and non-statutory bonuses, vacations, separation pay when this arises, interest on retirement or redundancy pay (cesantias) and other grants to employees, if and when these are a component of the wage or salary. Retirement pensions paid to retired persons, the value of fees arising from professional services, the value of contracts with persons who carry out industrial work for the establishment in their private houses, benefits paid out, medical and funeral expenses, life assurance, housing subsidies, study grants and other occasional bonuses are excluded. For permanent manual and non-manual employees, wages, salaries and benefits are considered separately. The earnings obtained (wages + salaries + benefits) are calculated together. For temporary manual and non-manual employees, only earnings are calculated.

Wage/salary rates

Not relevant.

Hours of work

Information is collected on the total number of hours worked, for wage earners, separately for permanent and temporary workers. The time corresponding to paid leave, vacations, absences by reason of sickness, Sundays and holidays not worked is excluded. Hours worked are classified as: Hours worked by directors and non-manual employees are not collected.

International recommendations

The definitions of wages and salaries and of hours actually worked comply with the international standards in force regarding statistics of earnings and hours of work from current surveys (monthly or quarterly).

Classifications

Industrial

The International Standard Industrial Classification of all economic activities (ISIC), Rev. 2, 1968 is used at the industry group level (three-digit level).

Occupational

Not relevant.

Others

Data are classified according to category (salaried employees or wage earners). Results are also obtained at the national level and by regions of greatest development in production (Bogotá, Antioquia and Valle del Cauca). Data on employment are classified by size of establishment.

Sample size and design

Statistical unit

The unit supplying the data is the industrial establishment with ten or more workers. It is defined as the combination of activities and resources which, in the form of a single legal entity, forms a unit of ownership or administration, for the production of a class, as homogeneous as possible, of manufactured goods at one single location, and from which independent accounting records are received regarding materials, the labour force and other physical resources which are used in the process of production and in complementary or auxiliary activities.

Survey universe / sample frame

Since 1991 the reference point has been the 1985 Annual Survey of Manufacturing (1985). It has been supplemented by updated information supplied by each of the regional directorates of DANE regarding changes in and the existence of establishments.

Sample design

The sample covers a total of 875 establishments selected at national level and distributed as follows: The sample size for each substratum is estimated in such a way that all groups satisfy a 95 per cent confidence interval with a maximum relative error of 10 per cent for statistics of average output. Systematic selection within each substratum was used, with a probability proportional to the size of the establishments (in terms of employment and gross production). The sample is updated only when the frame is renewed.

Field work

Data collection

Questionnaires are sent by post every month to the sample establishments and returned (also by post) to the six regional directorates of DANE. Before the questionnaires are distributed to the regional directorates, the identification of establishments and the month to which the information refers are printed on them.

Survey questionnaire

A simple form is used, of one page, containing the data identifying the establishment and the variables which the unit should provide (workers employed according to occupational categories and type of relationship, total of wages and salaries and social benefits paid, total hours worked, total value of production and total value of sales). The establishments also receive a manual describing the type of information sought for the Monthly Sample of Manufacturing, with general information regarding the survey and specific instructions and definitions.

Substitution of sampling units

Not relevant.

Data processing and editing

As soon as the forms are received at the regional headquarters, in the municipal offices or through a DANE collector, a general check of the forms is carried out on the basis of a control card for each establishment in which all the monthly information is recorded. Inquiries are also made by telephone and personal visit where data are lacking or inconsistent. As soon as the information has been verified and its coverage checked, it is transferred to magnetic tape and copied on to two more tapes for verification. One of these is used in processing the information and the other is held as a back-up copy. Programmes for detecting inconsistencies are used to validate numerical fields, and records for each establishment permit the detection of errors in the information and variations outside the range. Various corrections and revisions of the data are carried out and the expanded results of the variables surveyed are produced and revised.

Types of estimates

Construction of indices

Index number of persons employed, wages and salaries and hours worked are constructed, according to occupational category, type of relationship and industry groups. An index of real wages and salaries is also constructed, using the Consumer Price Index calculated by DANE for medium (non-manual employees) and low (manual employees) incomes.

Weighting of sample results

Estimates of totals: Estimates of averages: Nominal and real average wages and salaries are estimated for non-manual employees, manual employees and all employees together, and average nominal wage per hour worked by manual employees, on the basis of the estimated data of the respective variables by industry group and for total manufacturing.

Adjustments

Non-response

Adjustments are made, but the methodology is not available.

Other bias

None.

Use of benchmark data

In the method of calculating the estimates, data on employment, production and wages and salaries for the last months for which information is available are used.

Seasonal variations

Not relevant.

Indicators of reliability of the estimates

Coverage of the sampling frame

Not available.

Sampling error / sampling variance

Not available.

Non-response rate

Not available.

Non-sampling errors

Not available.

Conformity with other sources

Not relevant.

Available series

History of the survey

The Monthly Sample in Manufacturing began in May 1962, with the aim of producing indicators of employment and wages and salaries. Over the years the survey frame and the sample have been modified. In July 1970, the Annual Survey of Manufacturing of 1968 was taken as the reference point. With this sample as the basis, results of production, employment and wages salaries were presented, the last two by occupational category, for the whole industry and for the 20 ISIC industry groups, until December 1980. In 1978, the sample was updated, at which time a new sample design was adopted for which results were obtained as from January 1981. The present survey has as reference point the Annual Survey of Manufacturing of 1985 and the new methodology has been applied since 1991. The indicators calculated are classified by occupational categories and type of relationship. The survey also provides indicators representative of manufacturing performance in those sections of the country which have the greatest development in production. The various indices are calculated on the basis of the 1990 monthly averages = 100. With the former methodology they were calculated on the basis of the 1980 monthly averages = 100.

Documentation

Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadística (DANE): Boletín de Estadística (monthly, Bogotá). A summary of the new methodology was given in No. 459 of June 1991. The survey data are also available on diskette.

Confidentiality / Reliability criteria

Not available.

Other information

Data supplied to the ILO for publication

The following series are published in the Yearbook of Labour Statistics: In addition, monthly series of index numbers of paid employment and monthly earnings of employees in manufacturing are published in the Bulletin of Labour Statistics.