Spain (2)
Title of the survey
Encuesta de Coyuntura Laboral (ECL) (Survey of Economic Trends).
Organization responsible
Ministerio de Trabajo y Seguridad Social, Dirección General de
Informática y Estadística, Subdirección General de Estadística.
Periodicity of the survey
Quarterly, on a continuous basis.
Objectives of the survey
To obtain information on employment and its composition, mobility of
labour and the reasons for it, the working day, absence from work and
the reasons for it, certain aspects of labour relations and the opinions
of employers with regard to the development of the labour market.
Main labour topics covered by the survey
Employment, the working day and the opinion of employers.
Reference period
For employment: the last day of the reference quarter.
For data on the working day: the whole of the reference quarter.
The opinions of employers refer to the following quarter or to the
corresponding quarter of the year following that of the reference
quarter.
Coverage of the survey
Geographical
The whole national territory, with the exception of Ceuta and
Melilla.
Industrial
Non-agricultural activities covering all branches of activity in
industry, construction, services, except for public administration,
national defence and social security, diplomatic representation,
international organizations and religious organizations.
Establishments
Establishments with six or more workers, which are centres of
contribution to social security.
Persons
All employees who carry out their activities in these centres.
Occupations
Not relevant.
Concepts and definitions
Employment
Employees are defined ned as those persons who, on the last
day of the quarter to which the survey refers, have an employment
relationship with an enterprise located in Spanish territory in which
their work is performed. They include workers who, on the last day of
the quarter, are not carrying out their work because of vacation, leave,
labour dispute etc., workers laid off because of a temporary shortage of
work, and workers who are suspended or on short time as the result of
short-time working.
The following groups are excluded:
- the president, general directors and members of the board of
directors (if these are not paid for some other reason connected with
work),
- workers performing military service,
- workers whose remuneration consists entirely of commissions,
- partners in cooperatives who are not regarded as working for
a third party,
- proprietors and/or members of their families who are not members of
social security as working for a third party.
Employees are divided into:
- full-time workers: these are workers who spend more than two-thirds
of the usual working day in the activity with which the centre is
concerned,
- part-time workers: these are workers contracted to spend two-thirds
or less of the usual working day in the activity with which the centre
is concerned,
- workers on unlimited contracts: these are workers contracted for an
unspecified time. They include fixed workers with discontiuous periods
of work activity,
- workers on fixed-time contracts: these are workers contracted for a
specified period or for the performance of a particular job or service.
The concept thus includes methods of contracting such as a fixed-time
contract for the promotion of work, for practical training, for
training, for a job or service, for production etc.
For each of the categories of employees, data are collected by
sex.
Earnings
Not relevant.
Wage/salary rates
Not relevant.
Hours of work
Data are collected on the actual working day; this is the
average number of hours actually worked by the worker during the
quarter. Data are collected separately for full-time and part-time
workers on the following three topics:
- annual hours agreed on: these are the hours laid down in the
collective agreement in force at the end of the reference quarter or in
the work regulations and other similar agreements or, failing these, the
hours agreed upon by the proprietor and the workers, or those which it
is expected will be worked,
- overtime: the total overtime hours worked by full-time workers,
- hours not worked: these refer to time not worked during the working
day, for whatever reason. The following are reported separately:
vacations with pay, works holidays, long weekends which need not be made
up, temporary shortage of work, short-time working, labour dispute, paid
leave, trade-union activity, absence without excuse and other causes.
International recommendations
The concept and definition of the actual working day employed in this
survey comply with the current international standards regarding
statistics on hours actually worked. However, the actual working day is
estimated by the quarter rather than by the week or the month.
Classifications
Industrial
The 1974 Clasificación Nacional de las Actividades Económicas (CNAE)
is used, with coding at the two-digit level. The results are
published out by branch of economic activity,
division of economic activity and groupings of branches of
economic activity.
The CNAE is compatible with the International
Standard Industrial Classification of all economic activities
(ISIC), Rev. 2, 1968 at the division level (two-digits).
Occupational
Not relevant.
Others
The data are classified by size of centre (in three
groups according to size; six to 50 workers; 51 to 250
and over 250 workers) and autonomous community.
Sample size and design
Statistical unit
The sampling units are the centres included in the
survey coverage, which appear in the social security records. The
unit is the contribution account which is at the same time
the basic unit of the records. This unit is composed of a group of
workers of one enterprise who are homogeneous in respect of their
contributions and whose activity is carried out in one province.
This group of workers is associated the employers' registration
number with social security. Although in
theory the establishment or centre
of work and the contribution account are not the same, in practice
they coincide in a large percentage of cases.
Survey universe / sample frame
The survey frame is the directory of enterprises
obtained from the file of accounts of contributions to social
security. This directory includes the units which fall within
the survey coverage (contribution centres
with five or more workers).
The file of accounts of contributions is the only directory available
which supplies continually updated information on employment, from the
point of view of the enterprises.
Sample design
Stratified sampling is carried out according to size
of contribution centre and autonomous community. The
autonomous communities are regarded as independent
populations and in each of them stratification has been carried
out on the basis of the number of workers in the centres. For
this, the following sizes are used:
6 to 10 workers; 11 to 25; 26 to 50; 51 to
100; 101 to 250; 251 to 500; and more than 500 workers.
The size of the sample is approximately 10,000 units.
All centres with more than 500 workers are included; they are about
1,000 of these centres each quarter. The distribution of the remaining
sample units in those strata which are not covered exhaustively, some
9,000 in number, was carried out once during the first quarter of the
survey. No changes in these sample sizes are envisaged in principle,
unless marked changes are found in the distribution by strata
or in the other
variables in the records.
In a first phase, the 9000 units were distributed among the various
autonomous communities and subsequently within each of them according to
the size of the centres.
Distribution within the separate autonomous communities was carried out
on the basis of various criteria. The first was to ensure a minimum of
250 units in each one. The remaining units were assigned to the
separate autonomous communities according to the number of centres and
the variation in the number of workers per centre. Finally, when the
number of units in each community was fixed, it was distributed by size
groups of centres in proportion to the number of workers in each, with a
minimum of eight units guaranteed in all cases where this was possible.
The sample sizes lead to an overall sampling fraction of 0.042, with
different sampling fractions for each stratum.
The sample was selected using systematic sampling with a random starting
point within each cell comprising the autonomous community and a size
group of centres. The population units of each of these strata were
listed in advance according to the code of economic activity registered
in the social security record.
The sample used each quarter comprises the sampling units of the
previous quarter, with units added or removed, as necessary, following
their treatment based on the different types of situation, both within
the sample and external to it (see below under Substitution of
sampling units).
When all the reasons for irregularity are taken into account, about
eight per cent of the sample is updated each quarter, which in annual
terms is equivalent to approximately a quarter of the sample.
Field work
Data collection
The questionnaires are sent by post to the sample centres during the
last two weeks of the quarter to which the data refer. The sample units
are surveyed using a mixed system: by an interviewer for one part of
the sample and, for the other enterprises in the survey, with the
enterprise filling the questionnaire plus supplementary telephone calls
made by specialist statistical staff. The second method is applied to
approximately one-third of the sample.
Survey questionnaire
The questionnaire comprises the following main sections:
- data identifying the social security contribution centre and
and the enterprise,
- employment, recruitment and discharges; composition of employees
according to their working day and type of contract; movement of
workers; classification of the recruitment and discharges according to
type of contract; causes of discharges; workers whose type of contract
has been modified;
- duration of working time; number of ageed hours per year per
worker; number of days of annual vacation agreed upon; overtime hours
during the quarter; time worked during the quarter per full-time
worker; time not worked by all full-time workers during the quarter;
time worked during the quarter per part-time worker; time not worked by
all part-time workers during the quarter;
- attendance;
- labour market and opinions of proprietors.
Instructions are sent with the questionnaire and an instruction manual
is available for interviewers.
Substitution of sampling units
Units which cease to be part of the frame through having reduced their
workforce, according to the information in the record, or with fewer
than six workers, or through changing their economic activity and taking
up one which is not included in the survey coverage, are replaced by
units with similar characteristics with
respect to their location, size of the centre and economic activity.
The first of these leads to a turnover of 2.5 per cent of the sample
every quarter with respect to the previous quarter. The second of these
is so rare as to be negligible in practice.
Substitutions of sampling units are also made when units cannot be
located, when they explicitly refuse to collaborate for various reasons,
when they have ceased operations or in the case of centres which engage
in activities not covered by the survey. The irregularities which occur
every quarter for the reasons above involve about three per cent of the
sample. In this case, if time permits, substitution is carried out in
the same quarter in which the irregularity is observed, using groups of
reserve units with similar characteristics. This occurs in about 60 per
cent of cases.
On the other hand, there are centres which do not openly refuse to
collaborate in the survey, but whose questionnaires cannot be obtained
in time. These make up about six per cent of the sample. In this case,
substitution is not automatic and is used only when it is discovered
that a unit has shown this pattern for several quarters in succession.
Finally, in the case of centres where there is a temporary stoppage of
activity, there is no substitution, but the centre remains in the sample
so that it can be surveyed during its periods of activity.
Data processing and editing
Every quarter when the field work is completed, the questionnaires are
received together with the irregularities arising in the field (refusals
to collaborate, inability to locate, layoffs, etc.). The questionnaires
are checked in order to detect possible errors. Checking is carried out
basically in three separate ways: checking of individual
questionnaires for invalid or inconsistent values and anomalous ratios
among the variables; checking for inconsistencies between data supplied
by the centre for the reference quarter and data from previous quarters;
analysis of the behaviour of certain variables, examining their
development and distribution by the variables of the classification and
making comparisons with other statistical sources.
When this has been carried out, the file of
questionnaires is submitted to a number of processes in which the
coverage is assessed and the grossing-up factors, etc. are
assigned, until it is ready for producing the results.
Types of estimates
The estimates calculated refer to quarterly averages of working
days, hours not worked and overtime.
The average working day per quarter per worker is estimated as the
average number of hours actually worked per quarter and per worker. It
is obtained as the weighted average of the average days worked per full-
and part-time worker.
The average working day per quarter per full-time worker is estimated as
follows: first, the total number of hours is calculated, in theory as
the hours all full-time workers in the centre were intended to work
during the quarter. For this, the annual hours agreed upon, the hours
corresponding to public holidays and those granted as vacation and long
weekends which need not be made up are added together. The sum is then
multiplied by the number of full-time workers in the centre during the
reference quarter, and the product is divided by four, so as to obtain a
quarterly average. Hours of overtime worked during the quarter are
added to this average and the hours not worked for reasons stated above
are subtracted (in both cases with reference to the total number of
full-time workers). The result is divided by the number of full-time
workers.
The average working day per part-time worker is obtained by subtracting
from the number of hours which all part-time workers in the centre were
intended to work during the reference quarter the hours not worked for
the reasons referred to above. The result is divided by the total
number of part-time workers in the centre.
Construction of indices
Not relevant.
Weighting of sample results
Expansion factors are used for stratified
sample, corrected for non-response.
For calculating the average of variable Y with respect to another
variable X, such as the average working day per worker, the
ratio estimate is used, i.e. the ratio of the expansion factors
of Y and X.
Adjustments
Non-response
Non-response is taken into account in the expansion factors for the
sample.
Other bias
None.
Use of benchmark data
Not relevant.
Seasonal variations
Not relevant.
Indicators of reliability of the estimates
Coverage of the sampling frame
This is considered that the record of contribution accounts to social
security covers about 85 per cent of total employment.
Sampling error / sampling variance
The sampling error of the total of a variable X is calculated using the
standard deviation of the variable. The sampling error is measured in
absolute terms and as a percentage (relative sampling error).
Non-response rate
The quarterly response rate for enterprises is around 85 per cent, and
the final coverage rate amounts to 90 per cent, owing to substitutions.
Non-sampling errors
Not relevant.
Conformity with other sources
Not relevant.
Available series
- Employees by sex, type of contract and working day, branch and
group of activity, size of centre and autonomous community:
- in absolute values,
- as percentage of the total,
- employees with remuneration equal to the minimum interprofessional
wage, by sex, age, branch of activity, size of centre and autonomous
community:
- in absolute values,
- as percentage of the total,
- average working day per quarter per worker according to type of day
by branch and group of activity, by size of centre and autonomous
community,
- hours not worked per worker during the quarter, according to cause,
by type of day, by branch of activity, size of centre and autonomous
community:
- in absolute values,
- as percentage of the total,
- overtime worked during the quarter and workers who have worked
overtime, by branch of activity, size of centre and autonomous
community.
History of the survey
The ECL began in the second quarter of 1990 as a
quarterly survey.
Documentation
Ministerio de Trabajo y Seguridad Social, Dirección General de
Informática y Estadísticas, Subdirección General de Estadística:
Encuesta de Coyuntura Laboral (Madrid; quarterly).
This publication contains the definitions of the various concepts
used and the methodology applied.
Time series with data
on the main variables are also included in:
idem: Boletín de Estadísticas Laborales (ibid., monthly).
idem: Anuario de Estadísticas Laborales (ibid., annual).
The survey data are also available on diskette.
Confidentiality / Reliability criteria
The data collected are protected by statistical confidentiality as
laid down in law 12/89 on statistics of 9.5.89.
Information on classifications with high sampling errors, or
whose characteristics would enable responding units to be identified,
is not made public.
Other information
Data supplied to the ILO for publication
Quarterly data on paid employment from this survey will shortly be
published in the Bulletin of Labour Statistics.