Germany (2)
Title of the survey
Survey of Labour Costs
Organization responsible
Federal Statistical Office (Statistisches Bundesamt),
in cooperation with the statistical offices
of the Länder.
Periodicity of the survey
Four-yearly (1988, 1992).
Objectives of the survey
To obtain data on labour costs per employed person and per hour worked
and to enable the individual enterprise to compare its own labour costs
with the average value for the branch or other branches of economic
activity in its country and the countries of the European Communities.
The results are also used by the social partners in the process of
collective bargaining.
Main labour topics covered by the survey
Employment, hours of work and labour cost.
Reference period
The calendar year (e.g. 1992) or
the business year ending in March of the following year (e.g. within
the period 1 April 1992 to 31 March 1993).
Coverage of the survey
Geographical
The whole country (prior to 3.10.1990, the survey covered only the
territory of Federal Republic of Germany; since 1992, it also covers
the new Länder and Berlin (East).
Industrial
Industry, commerce (wholesale and retail trade), financing, banking and
insurance, and business services (computer and related activities,
research and development and other business activities - in the former
territory of the Federal Republic only).
Establishments
Enterprises with ten or more persons engaged.
Persons
Employees, i.e. wage-earners and salaried employees.
Apprentices are separately identified and not categorized under the
employees to whom labour costs relate.
Excluded are the following persons who are not regarded as employees:
those exempted from social insurance contributions due to short-term
employment; statutory representatives of legal entities;
persons working on a commission basis; homeworkers; workers
sub-contracted from other companies or firms and workers from temporary
work agencies; officials who are subject to an employment contract
under public law: persons participating in job-creation measures; as
well as persons working short time "zero".
Occupations
Data are not collected by occupation.
Concepts and definitions
Employment
Data refer to full-time and part-time
wage-earners, salaried employees and trainees, separately.
Wage-earners and salaried employees are employees who are
subject to contributions to pension
insurance fund for wage-earners or salaried employees, respectively.
Trainees are employees whose
work mainly serves training purposes (e.g. trainees
and unpaid trainees, employees undergoing occupational retraining as
well as university graduates participating in a trainee programme).
Full-time employees are persons who have a contract of employment
for the full collectively agreed working hours or the full working hours
generally worked in the enterprise.
Part-time employees are persons with a contract of employment for
less than the collectively agreed working hours or less than the working
hours generally worked in the enterprise.
Employment data refer to the number of persons who were employed in the
surveyed enterprises on the last day of each month of the reference
year. Data on the number of women employees refer to the month of June.
Labour cost
This corresponds to the sum of wages and salaries, including special
payments and remuneration for days
other than working days, employers'
social security expenditure, expenditure for support, education,
and staff facilities, and other costs related to personnel.
Data are collected separately on some 70 components, as follows:
- Total wages and salaries: these include basic pay and all premiums
and bonuses; commissions; recurring and non-recurring payments; and
payments for vacation days and days of absence due to illness, public
holidays and other paid free time. The following components are all
separately identified:
- wages and salaries of selected groups of employees: trainee
compensation including extra payments to apprentices; wages and
salaries of the enterprise's training staff; and wages and salaries of
employees working in the enterprise's health service, accident
prevention and other staff facilities;
- other components of total wages and salaries (excluding payments to
apprentices): additional vacation bonuses; benefits paid
by the employer to encourage capital formation by employees, including
the net expenditure for the issue of staff shares; other
extra payments expressly agreed upon beforehand such as 13th month;
extra payments depending on personal achievement
or the overall company result and the like, such as profit-sharing for
employees, premiums paid under the employee suggestion scheme; vacation
pay, remuneration for vacation not taken, including additional vacation
for seriously handicapped persons; continued pay until the sixth week
of sickness as prescribed by law; remuneration for public holidays and
other free working days prescribed by law; remuneration for other days
that are free for all employees of the enterprise or due to collective
agreement.
- Personnel expenditure not, or generally not, included in wages and
salaries:
- Employers' compulsory contributions to social insurance: pension
insurance; unemployment insurance; public health insurance and private
health insurance funds; pension, health and unemployment insurance for
apprentices; professional associations; apportionment for net earnings
paid over three months before bankruptcy proceedings are opened.
- Expenditure for employee pension schemes and other institutions of a
provident nature: pension payments on the basis of employer's pension
commitments; company pension reserves according to Art. 6a of the
Income Tax Law, at the beginning and at the end of the business year;
contributions to pension funds (enterprise pension schemes); relief
funds; direct insurance; early retirement; other expenditure for old
age provision and contributions to the Pension Guarantee Association;
additional contributions to institutions providing support in the case
of sickness; additional contributions to institutions supporting
employees in the case of short-time work and unemployment; other
expenditure for institutions of a provident nature.
- Expenditure for support and other ancillary labour costs:
additional continued pay in the case of sickness and allowances in
addition to sickness benefits; allowances granted for physicians'
services, cures, dentures and the like; enterprise or agreed short-time
allowances; family benefits; housing expenditure; payments
in kind; compensation and severance pay upon termination of employment;
cost of materials and outside services for vocational education or
training and further training, training courses; canteen costs, lunch
coupons paid for by the employer; cost of materials and outside
services of enterprise health services and other staff facilities (for
leisure groups, vacation facilities, working clothes, provided this is
no special protective clothing such as radiation-proof clothing and
safety helmets); expenditure for work away from the enterprise;
recruitment costs (recruiting and interview expenses, including
reimbursements of travelling and moving expenses and allowances for
furnishings); other statutory expenditure (e.g. equalizing levy as
stipulated in the Disabled Persons Act and charges to support
construction during the winter season (in the building industry));
other allowances such as wage and church tax.
Minus
- Expenditure reimbursed from public funds, i.e. settling-in
allowances granted by the Federal Institute for Employment according to
the Employment Promotion Law.
Labour cost data are collected separately for wage earners and
salaried employees.
Hours of work
Data are collected on total hours paid for and
hours actually worked, separately for
full-time and part-time wage earners and salaried employees.
If the number of hours paid for of salaried employees is not recorded in
the enterprise, an estimate may be provided, based on the following
formula:
number of salaried employees x agreed weekly working hours x 52.14 +
overtime.
The hours actually worked are obtained by subtracting the hours paid for
but not worked (for paid vacation, sickness or public holidays, meal
breaks, time spent on travel from home to work and vice versa, etc.)
from the total number of hours paid for.
International recommendations
The definition and components of labour cost comply with the guidelines
of the European Communities and with the international recommendations
on labour cost.
The concept of hours actually worked conforms to the international
guidelines on hours of work and the measurement of hourly labour cost.
Classifications
Components of labour cost / compensation of employees
Data on labour costs are classified by main components. This
classification can be linked to groups I to IX of the International
Standard Classification of Labour Cost (ISCLC - 1966).
Industrial
Data are classified according to the Statistical Classification of
Economic Activities of the European Communities (NACE),
Rev.1, which itself is based on the International Standard Industrial
Classification of all economic activities (ISIC), Rev.3, 1990.
Occupational
Not relevant.
Others
The data are classified by:
- employment size of establishments (10-49, 50-99, 100-199, 200-499,
500-999, 1000 and over).
- region (17 federal Länder incl. Berlin-West and Berlin-East);
- category of workers (wage earners, salaried employees).
Sample size and design
Statistical unit
The sampling unit is the enterprise. If the enterprise is a
single-unit enterprise, it is also the reporting unit. If the
enterprise consists of several local units, a separate report has to be
completed for each local unit. If an enterprise has employees in both
the old and the new Länder, separate reports must be completed.
Survey universe / sample frame
For the 1992 survey, the Register of the production industries and the
1987 Census of non-agricultural local units served as a sample frame in
the former territory of the Federal Republic. The sample frame used for
the production industries in the new Länder was also the Register of the
production industries. In wholesale and retail trade, the 1990 Survey
of economically active persons and other sample frames were used. With
regard to the banking sector, material from the Deutsche Bundesbank was
utilized. Determining the number of employees required preliminary
inquiries in some areas.
In 1988, the universe included a total of 148,000 enterprises, of
which 98,000 enterprises were in the production industries (mining,
energy and water management, manufacturing and building industry), and
50,000 were in the services sector (wholesale and retail trade, banking
and insurance).
In 1992, the universe included a total of 189,000 enterprises in the
former territory of the Federal Republic, of which 116,000 were in the
production industries and 73,000 in the services sector; and a total of
13,500 enterprises in the new Länder and Berlin-East, of which 9,900
were in the production industries and 3,600 in the services sector.
Sample design
A one-stage stratified sampling design is used. The sample
of enterprises is first stratified by federal Land (17 Länder). Within
each Land, the enterprises are stratified according to 79
economic classes (53 for the production industries and 26 for the
services sector) and within the economic classes, by size classes;
there are seven classes according to the number of persons engaged:
10-49, 50-99, 100-199, 200-499, 500-999, 1000-2999, 3000 and more. No
separate results are calculated for classes 6 and 7 (1000 to 2999 and
3000 and more), but large enterprises with 3000 or more employees are
included with certainty, while sampling is used in class 6.
The drawing of the random sample in the production industries and in
the wholesale and retail trades is carried out mechanically, using
the Standard Stratified Sample Programme (STIA). The drawing of the
sample in banking, insurance and publishing is carried out by hand in
the Federal Statistical Office.
In 1992, the sample size was fixed at 28,000 enterprises in the former
territory of the Federal Republic, of which 15,000 were from the
production industries and 13,000 in the services sector. In the new
Länder and Berlin-East, the total was 9,800 enterprises, of which 7,100
were in the production industries and 2,700 in the services sector.
In order to recognise possible differences with regard to labour costs
and incidental labour expenses between the Länder, different selection
procedures are applied, in the sense that small Länder are included with
a sampling rate which is on average higher, and large Länder are
included with a rate which is on average lower.
The sampling fraction ranges from 11 to 82 percent, with an
overall sampling fraction of 19 per cent.
Rotation sampling is used from the preceding survey: all
enterprises which were covered in the previous survey are, as far as
possible for reasons of sampling methodology,
replaced by new ones.
Field work
Data collection
Data are collected by mailed questionnaire
by the staff of the statistical offices of the Länder, in
accordance with uniform guidelines issued by the Federal Statistical
Office. In the case of non-response, the postal survey is supplemented
by telephone calls and by reminders in writing.
Survey questionnaire
It consists of seven parts, which concern, respectively:
- identification of the enterprise and general information on its
activity, the denomination of the collective agreement applied, the
business year, information on short-time work and strikes and lockouts
during the reference year;
- number of wage earners, salaried employees, full-time and part-time
employees, and trainees;
- labour costs;
- reimbursement of expenditure;
- hours of work;
- payments made to firms for providing temporary workers and paid
hours of temporary workers provided by such firms;
- paid free days of full-time and part-time employees, excluding
apprentices (only if the remuneration for free days is not indicated
among the components of labour cost).
Information on the legal basis, purpose and
type of the survey, the obligation to provide information,
confidentiality and auxiliary variables, as well as relevant detailed
explanations, are part of the questionnaire.
Substitution of sampling units
Not relevant. The survey is compulsory. The obligation to provide
information is laid down in the EC Regulations in connection with Art.
15 BStatG. The employers of the enterprises included in the sample
survey are obliged to provide the required information. In rare cases
of total non-response, adjustments are made to the weighting procedure
(see below) by application of a replacement factor.
Data processing and editing
Data are checked manually before being processed by computer. They
undergo a machine credibility test. Those which are not plausible are
checked by contacting the reporting unit by telephone or letter.
Types of estimates
Estimates are made in the form of totals, averages of labour cost for
wage earners and salaried employees, and distribution of labour cost
by components in percentages. The time unit to which they refer is the
hour actually worked. Monthly averages of labour cost are also
computed.
In monthly estimates of labour cost, part-time workers are converted to
full-time workers by multiplying them by 0.6.
The hourly estimates are based on the actual or estimated number of
hours actually worked and paid for.
Apprentices are excluded from the denominator of the labour costs per
employee. Similarly, labour cost estimates per hour worked do not
include the hours worked by apprentices. However, their remuneration
and the employers' compulsory contributions to social insurance for
apprentices are covered as training costs in the labour costs relating
to wage earners and salaried employees.
Construction of indices
Index numbers are not constructed.
Weighting of sample results
Because of the different sampling rates in the individual strata,
conversion to a uniform level must be carried out. The results for each
enterprise are multiplied by the extrapolation factor (i.e. the
reciprocal of the sampling fraction). Aggregate data are obtained by
multiplying the sample results per stratum by the raising factor (i.e.
the ratio of the number of establishments in the universe to the number
within the sample), corrected by the replacement factor.
Adjustments
Non-response
A distinction is made between "false" and "genuine"
non-response.
False non-response indicates a firm which either no longer existed at
the time the survey was conducted, was no longer involved in industry or
commerce, or no longer constituted an independent local unit. In such
cases, the units concerned are crossed off the list and not replaced.
Genuine non-response indicates a firm which simply ignored the survey.
In this case, a replacement factor is applied, which corresponds to the
quotient of the number of firms contacted less the number of
non-existent firms, to the number of firms which replied plus the number
of non-participating firms. The number of firms contacted is the
"corrected" number of firms in the sample, i.e. after crossing off the
"false" non-response firms.
Other bias
No adjustment are made for any other bias.
Use of benchmark data
Not relevant.
Use of other surveys
Not relevant.
Indicators of reliability of the estimates
Coverage of the sampling frame
The Register of the production industries and the Census of
non-agricultural local units are in principle complete. In 1992, the
major part of the material used for the new Länder and Berlin-East was
obsolete. This resulted in non-coverage which, however, cannot be
quantified in figures.
Sampling error / sampling variance
For the most important data, the simple relative standard error is
computed.
The sampling rates within the individual strata are chosen so as to
produce the minimum sampling error: the simple relative standard error
for the most important data (remuneration for work done, incidental
labour expenses (total), legal incidental labour expenses (total),
special payments and corporate pension plans) should not be greater than
1 per cent.
Non-response rate
Not relevant. Employers of enterprises included in the sample survey
are obliged to provide the required information.
Non-sampling errors
The number of hours worked cannot be covered with absolute accuracy.
Conformity with other sources
Not relevant.
Estimates for non-survey years
For the years between the survey,
the labour costs are updated by the
Federal Statistical Office on the basis of the development of earnings
and employers' statutory and non-statutory contributions.
Available series
Regular published tables include, separately, for production
industries and wholesale and retail trade and financing and insurance
industries:
- average labour cost per person
and by main components, and structure of
costs by components, classified by
major industry group and size class
of enterprises;
- average labour cost per hour actually worked;
- various cross-classifications of labour cost by employee category,
industry group, size class; as well as quantiles.
History of the survey
The first Survey of labour costs was conducted in Germany by the German
Employers' Association in 1949.
In 1955, pilot surveys were carried out in various European countries in
cooperation with the ILO. The first and, at the same time, only
official Survey of labour costs at the national level was conducted in
connection with a Structure of earnings survey in 1957. Between 1959
and 1964, the European Community member states conducted Community
surveys in selected branches of economic activity. Since 1966,
Community surveys have been carried out in the production industries.
Up to 1984, these surveys were
carried out every three years. Since 1984, they have been conducted at
four-year intervals. The most recent survey was conducted in 1993,
with reference to 1992.
In the services sector, a pilot survey was conducted in retail trade
and parts of the banking and insurance sectors in 1970.
Another separate survey of the services sector took place in wholesale
and retail trade and the banking and insurance sectors in 1974. Since
1978, the survey conducted in those areas has been integrated with the
Survey of labour costs in production industries.
Documentation
Statistisches Bundesamt: Löhne und Gehälter,
Arbeitkostenerhebungen, Fachserie 16, Heft 1 (Arbeitskosten in
Produzierenden Gewerbe) (Wiesbaden, 1988).
idem: Löhne und Gehälter, Arbeitkostenerhebungen, Fachserie
16, Heft 2 (Arbeitskosten im Gross- und Einzelhandel sowie im Bank- und
Versicherungsgewerbe) (ibid., 1988).
Preliminary and final results of the EC Labour Cost Survey are also
published by:
Statistical Office of the European Communities (EUROSTAT):
Labour Costs 1988 - initial results
(Luxembourg, 1991).
idem: Labour Costs 1988 - volume 1: principal results, and
volume 2: results by size classes and by regions (ibid., 1992).
idem: Labour Costs: Updating 1989-1991 (ibid., 1992).
Confidentiality / Reliability criteria
The individual data reported for the survey are used for statistical
purposes only. They must not be used for taxation or passed on to
third parties.
Other information
Data supplied to the ILO for publication
Statistics of average labour cost per hour actually worked in
manufacturing are published in Tables 22A and 22B of the Yearbook of
Labour Statistics.