Greece (1)

Title of the survey

Quarterly payroll survey in mines, quarries, salterns, manufacturing and handicrafts, electricity, steam and water supply.

Organization responsible

National Statistical Service of Greece.

Periodicity of the survey

Quarterly.

Objectives of the survey

To follow the evolution of wages and salaries paid to employees. The major users of the survey results are Ministries (particularly Ministry of Labour and Ministry of National Economy), banks, employers' unions, labour unions, universities and international organizations.

Main labour topics covered by the survey

Employment, earnings, wage rates and hours of work.

Reference period

Employment: a specific week at a specific date. Earnings, wage rates and hours of work: the pay period including the 18th day of the reference month.

Coverage of the survey

Geographical

The whole country.

Industrial

Mining and quarrying, manufacturing, electricity, gas and water.

Establishments

Mines, quarries and salterns: establishments with five or more workers. Manufacturing and handicrafts, electricity, steam and water supply: establishments with ten or more workers.

Persons

All employees aged 14 years or over.

Occupations

Not relevant.

Concepts and definitions

Employment

Data relate to employees: manual employees and non-manual employees. Manual employees: those engaged in manual work under contract of employment. Non-manual employees: those who are not included in the definition of manual employees, including foremen, overseers and administrative, technical and commercial staff. The following are included: workers on probation, temporary, casual and seasonal workers, persons temporarily absent from work because of paid vacation, strike or lockout, military service, sickness or accident, and persons temporarily present on payroll during period preceding retirement, resignation or dismissal. They exclude working proprietors and directors, apprentices and trainees, part-time workers, piece workers, commission agents, homeworkers, workers sub-contracted from other companies or firms, unpaid family workers and persons temporarily absent from work because of unpaid vacation or lay off.

Earnings

Data are collected on gross earnings, i.e. the total remuneration in cash paid directly and regularly by the employer each pay period, before deductions for taxes, social security contributions and fines payable by employees. The following components are separately identified: Gross earnings also include commissions for sales, incentive pay, cost-of-living and family allowances, remuneration for time not worked such as vacations, public holidays, other time off with pay and bonuses and gratuities paid regularly. They refer to payments relating to the reference period; retrospective payments are excluded. House rent and transport allowances, irregularly paid bonuses and gratuities and earnings in kind are excluded. The earnings data cover the same categories of workers as the employment data and are collected separately for manual and non-manual employees and by sex.

Wage/salary rates

Average rates actually paid, comprising: Payments in kind are excluded. The data on wage rates cover the same categories of workers as the employment data and are collected separately by sex.

Hours of work

The data relate to hours paid for, i.e. the hours worked during normal periods of work, paid overtime, time spent at place of work for preparation of workplace, repairs, maintenance, preparation and cleaning of tools, preparation of receipts, time sheets and reports; time spent at place of work waiting or standing by for reasons such as breakdown of machinery, lack of supply of materials or clients, bad weather or time spent at place of work during which no work is done but for which payment is made under a guaranteed employment contract, time corresponding to short rest periods at the workplace including tea or coffee breaks, meal breaks and study or training periods. They also include hours paid for but not worked such as vacation, holidays. They exclude hours not worked because of sickness or accident, occupational injury, maternity leave, parental or personal leave, military or related service, civic, study leave, professional training, lay off or short-time working, strikes and lockouts and disciplinary suspension, time spent on travel from home to work and vice versa and time devoted to trade unions and employers' organization activities. The data on hours of work cover the same categories of workers as the employment data, and are collected separately by sex.

International recommendations

The definitions of earnings, wage rates and hours paid for conform in general to the international recommendations on current statistics.

Classifications

Industrial

Data on employment, earnings, wage rates and hours of work are classified according to the Greek Statistical Classification of all branches of economic activity, 1980 at the three-digit level. This is convertible to the International Standard Industrial Classification of all economic activities (ISIC), Rev. 2, 1968 at the two-digit level.

Occupational

Not relevant.

Others

The survey data are classified by size of establishment (average annual employment), region, manual and non-manual workers, and sex.

Sample size and design

Statistical unit

Establishment: a location in which one or more persons, being under single control, are permanently engaged in the production, repairing or assembling of goods, or in auxiliary activities other than the main ones.

Survey universe / sample frame

The Register of Establishments, based on the results of the Industrial Censuses. The survey was last redesigned in 1989, and the new sample size was determined on the basis of the results of the 1984 Census of Establishments. The sample frame is not updated using administrative sources.

Sample design

The frame is stratified by region (13 Regional Development Departments), establishment size and industry groups. For manufacturing and handicrafts and electricity, steam and water supply the size groups of establishments are: 10-19, 20-29, 30-49, 50-99 and 100 employees or more. Samples are drawn for the first four size categories, while all establishments with 100 employees or more are retained. For mines and quarries, there are four size groups: 5-9, 10-19, 20-29 and 30 employees or more. Establishments are selected from each cell (region, industry group and size group). The minimum sample size from a single cell is two establishments. The sample comprises about 3,176 establishments with 356,000 persons employed. It is divided into three, with data being collected from each third for one month of the reference quarter.

Field work

Data collection

Data are collected using mailed questionnaires, sent out each month, with follow-up by telephone or enumerator's visit, where necessary.

Survey questionnaire

Instructions for each of the types of data to be reported are provided along with the questionnaire. Data are collected separately for manual and non-manual employees, and by sex, on: The form includes space for the name and contact details of the person completing the questionnaire. The establishment is identified only by a code which is allocated by the Statistical Office, and includes positions for the region, economic activity, size stratum and the serial number of the establishment within the economic activity.

Substitution of sampling units

There is no substitution of sampling units in cases of total non-response.

Data processing and editing

Data are processed by computer and checked by machine edit. Consistency checks are made by comparing with the previous year's data.

Types of estimates

Estimates of the following averages are calculated separately by sex: The data for each establishment are first converted to the same time period. Data for non-manual workers are converted to a month, and those for manual workers to a week. A raising factor M/mi is applied to the data for each establishment, where: M is the number of working days in the month for non-manual workers or in the week for manual workers, and mi is the number of working days to which the data for the establishment refer. The data for all establishments in each category are then summed by industry group and size stratum, and the total multiplied by the estimator Nhi/nhi, where: Nhi is the total number of establishments in industry group h and size stratum i in the universe, and nhi is the corresponding number of establishments in the sample. The total number of persons employed is estimated by adding the sample data for each category (manual and non-manual workers), industry group and stratum size, and then multiplying the total by the estimator Nhi/nhi.

Construction of indices

Indices of monthly earnings for non-manual workers and hourly earnings for manual workers are calculated, with November 1964 as the base. The annual average index is the simple average of the indices for the four quarters. The indices are calculated for manufacturing and handicrafts only.

Weighting of sample results

Aggregate data are obtained by multiplying the sample results by the raising factor (see above).

Adjustments

Non-response

No adjustments are made for non-response.

Other bias

No adjustments are made for any other bias, nor for abnormal circumstances affecting the data.

Use of benchmark data

None.

Seasonal variations

No adjustments are made for seasonal variations.

Indicators of reliability of the estimates

Coverage of the sampling frame

Every attempt is made to ensure full coverage. For the 1988 survey, the establishment register covered some 10,000 establishments, representing about 66.32 per cent of total employment.

Sampling error / sampling variance

Not available.

Non-response rate

About one per cent.

Non-sampling errors

Not available.

Conformity with other sources

Not available.

Available series

The corresponding indices are also published.

History of the survey

The Quarterly Survey on the Earnings of Industrial Workers has been carried out since November 1961 by the National Statistical Service of Greece, initially covering only manufacturing and handicrafts. It shows the development, on a quarterly basis, of paid work in industry (average monthly salary of non-manual workers, average weekly and hourly earning of manual workers, average daily earnings, average number of hours and days worked, etc). Major revisions during the last 20 years consist of:

Documentation

National Statistical Service of Greece: Monthly Statistical Bulletin (Athens, monthly). idem: Labour statistics (ibid., quarterly) (mimeographed); idem: Statistical Yearbook of Greece (ibid., annual). The survey results are published about one year after the reference period. Most of the data in the survey are published, but some additional tabulations could be made available on request.

Confidentiality / Reliability criteria

The information provided by establishments is confidential and used solely for statistical purposes. The survey results are not published if there are less than three establishments in a branch of economic activity.

Other information

Data supplied to the ILO for publication

Data on paid employment in mining and quarrying and manufacturing are published in Tables 5B and 6 of the Yearbook of Labour Statistics. The employment index is published in Table 3 of the the Bulletin of Labour Statistics. Statistics on average hours paid for (for wage earners) and average hourly (wage earners) and monthly earnings (salaried employees) are published in Tables 12A, 17A and 17B of the Yearbook of Labour Statistics and in Tables 6 and 8 of the Bulletin of Labour Statistics.

Other sources of data

Two other surveys are conducted by the National Statistical Service of Greece: a quarterly Payroll survey in Wholesale and Retail Trade, and a half-yearly Payroll survey in Banking and Insurance.