Ireland (1)

Title of the survey

Industrial Inquiry, Employment, Earnings and Hours worked

Organization responsible

Central Statistics Office (CSO)

Periodicity of the survey

Quarterly.

Objectives of the survey

To estimate, on a quarterly basis, average earnings and hours of work of industrial workers and the number of persons engaged in industrial establishments. The survey results are used extensively by industry, government, trade unions, etc.

Main labour topics covered by the survey

Employment, earnings and hours of work.

Reference period

For employment and hours of work: a specific week in the middle of March, June, September and December. For earnings:

industrial workers: the same specific week as for employment and hours of work;
other employees: different pay periods covering the middle of March, June, September and December.

Coverage of the survey

Geographical

The whole country.

Industrial

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

Establishments

For employment: industrial establishments with three or more persons engaged. For earnings and hours of work: industrial establishments with ten or more persons engaged.

Persons

All persons engaged in industrial activities. Persons engaged in other business activities conducted by the enterprise at the same location (e.g. wholesaling of products not manufactured by the firm) and any own-account workers employed on a contract or fee basis are excluded.

Occupations

Data are not collected by individual occupation.

Concepts and definitions

Employment

All persons engaged cover persons directly engaged in the particular industrial activity (industrial workers), those providing support services relating to that activity (other employees) and proprietors and family members who not are paid a definite wage or salary (other persons engaged). Industrial workers include operatives, packers, cleaners; maintenance workers, storekeepers, etc; basic supervisory staff; and apprentices. Other employees include managerial and clerical staff:

managerial workers cover administrative, managerial and technical workers;
clerical workers encompass clerical and other office staff and sales representatives.

The above employment categories include full-time and part-time employees, as well as persons on holidays, short-time, or temporarily absent due to illness or injury. Information on the total number of persons engaged is collected separately for eight basic employee categories and two categories of other persons engaged, namely:

industrial workers (adult men and women, youths and girls),
male and female clerical workers (including sales representatives),
male and female managerial and technical staff,
outside piece workers, and proprietors and unpaid family members.

The terms "men" and "women" are intended to relate to employees on adult rates of pay. In practice, respondents may apply the particular categorization used for their own purposes to distinguish youths and girls. Apprentices and trainees are treated as youths or girls.

Earnings

They refer to total gross earnings paid to each category of employees (see above) in the different pay periods (i.e. weekly, fortnightly and monthly) covering the reference week, before deduction of income tax and any other employee's contributions. Gross earnings include overtime payments, service pay, shift and other allowances, commissions, production and regular bonuses. They exclude irregular bonuses, back-pay, redundancy payments as well as the value of payments in kind.

Wage/salary rates

Not relevant.

Hours of work

Data are collected on aggregate hours worked in the reference week by each of the four industrial worker categories (men, women, youths and girls). Hours worked by industrial workers include hours actually worked during normal periods of work, normal working hours of employees on holidays or sick leave with pay, paid overtime, time corresponding to short rest periods at the workplace, including tea or coffee breaks, time spent at the workplace for preparation of workplace, repairs and maintenance etc., or waiting or standing by, and periods of time spent at the workplace during which no work is done but for which payment is made under a guaranteed employment contract.

International recommendations

The definition of earnings covers regular cash earnings only. The value of payments in kind and irregular, seasonal or one-off bonuses are excluded. The definition of hours worked corresponds, in fact, to the concept of hours paid for, in that they include hours paid for but not worked (for holidays or sick leave) and paid overtime hours.

Classifications

Industrial

Data are classified according to the General Industrial Classification of Economics Activities within the European Communities (NACE), Rev.1, which is based on the International Standard Industrial Classification of all economic activities (ISIC), Rev.3, 1990. Industrial establishments are classified to the 3-digit group level (110 groups are covered) and quarterly estimates are published using 48 industrial sectors and groupings.

Occupational

Not relevant.

Others

By category of workers and by sex.

Sample size and design

Statistical unit

The industrial establishment, defined as a specific industry activity conducted at a particular location. The majority of industrial establishments are individual factories, workshops, quarries, etc. involved in a single industrial activity. Two or more distinct industrial activities conducted by an enterprise to any significant extent at one location are each distinguished as separate establishments. Single returns from multi-activity local industrial units are accepted by the CSO. They are then apportioned between the constituent establishments on the basis of the details returned in the annual Census.

Survey universe / sample frame

The sample is selected from the Register of Industrial Establishments, which is updated on a continuous basis. It includes information on all industrial firms with three or more persons employed.

Sample design

Two methods are used to provide statistics of industrial employment, earnings and hours of work. The survey of earnings and hours of work is a sample survey which comprises a representative selection of establishments with ten or more persons engaged in each three-digit NACE sector within the scope of the survey. Every effort is made to achieve full coverage of establishments with 100 or more persons engaged. Approximately 2,300 postal questionnaires are despatched each quarter. These consist of about 1,000 regular respondents; 800 establishments which respond periodically; and 500 establishments (mainly new firms) which are usually canvassed to respond for a number of quarters and then eliminated if cooperation is not forthcoming. Each quarter, estimates of earnings and hours of work are based on full details provided by approximately 1,300 respondents who account for approximately 70 per cent of total industrial employment. The employment survey consists of a complete enumeration of industrial establishments with three or more persons engaged, through a combination of different sources:

completed quarterly inquiry questionnaires for respondent sample establishments with ten or more persons engaged (see above);
total employment for other establishments obtained either from establishments with 20 or more persons engaged covered by the "Monthly Industrial Inquiry", or from special supplementary inquiries (generally annual);
imputed estimates for non-respondent establishments.

Field work

Data collection

Through mailed questionnaires, followed by postal reminders, phone follow-up and visits by field staff to non-respondents. In particular, CSO field representatives visit irregular and slow respondents to encourage them to participate in a timely manner each quarter.

Survey questionnaire

This consists of a single page form, accompanied with instructions on definitions, inclusions and exclusions. Establishments are asked to supply the following information:

Total persons engaged by category of workers (four categories under industrial workers, four under other employees and two under other persons engaged - see under Employment);
Aggregate earnings paid to each of the eight categories of employees, according to the pay period (weekly earnings of industrial workers, weekly, fortnightly and monthly earnings of other employees paid weekly, fortnightly or monthly);
Aggregate hours worked (hours paid for) in the reference week, for each of the four industrial worker categories.

The last page of the questionnaire is devoted to explanations of major changes, since the previous quarter, about employment (e.g. recruitment, short-time, redundancies, strikes) and earnings (e.g. wage increase, heavy overtime, holiday pay).

Substitution of sampling units

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

Data processing and editing

Data are processed by computer and edited through a computer editing system. Consistency checks are based on previous returns and made by the editing system.

Types of estimates

Totals of persons engaged and industrial workers, at sectoral level and by sex,
Averages of weekly and hourly earnings, and weekly hours of work,
Indices of average earnings and hours of work.

Construction of indices

Indices of average weekly earnings and hours of work are compiled using an annual September chain-linked Laspeyres formula based on a matched respondent sample. They are derived in such a way as to exclude the effects of changes in employment composition and industrial structure which are implicitly reflected in the corresponding absolute average earnings estimate; thus, they can be referred to as indices of underlying trends. The earnings indices are calculated as follows:

the sample establishments in each NACE x size cell which responded in both the current quarter and the preceding September are identified;
from this matched respondent sample, the ratio of average earnings (or hours worked) in the current quarter over the previous September is calculated for the eight basic employees categories in each NACE x size cell;
these ratios are combined for broader groupings (i.e. of size groups, employee categories and NACE sectors) using as weights the estimated total annual earnings (or hours worked) of all corresponding employees in the basic NACE x size cells in the four quarters ending the preceding September;
the long-term index series is derived by linking these annual sets of quarterly ratios at each successive September.

Indices of average earnings and hours of work are compiled for each employee category for which absolute averages are produced. An index of average weekly earnings for all employees is also compiled.

Weighting of sample results

No weighting procedure is applied. For employment estimates, the methodology includes imputations for non-respondent establishments using trends for respondents in the same NACE x size cell. The methodology for estimates of average earnings and hours of work includes (i) the same type of imputation for non-respondents and (ii) current employment estimates for weighting the averages for all sampled establishments in each NACE x size cell (using three size strata).

Adjustments

Non-response

The estimates for a non-respondent establishment are compiled by updating the preceding quarter's averages using the corresponding change shown by respondent establishments in the same NACE x size cell. In case of incomplete quarterly returns, the full details are imputed on the basis of the last complete return from the same establishment.

Other bias

None.

Use of benchmark data

The quarterly employment estimates are updated when the results of the annual Census of Industrial Establishments become available. These updatings are first completed for the relevant Census reference year, and are then carried forward to generate revised employment estimates for each subsequent quarter.

Seasonal variations

Quarterly employment estimates are adjusted for seasonal variations using the multiplicative form of the X-11 Variant of the US Bureau of the Census Method II - Seasonal Adjustment Program.

Indicators of reliability of the estimates

Coverage of the sampling frame

The Office Register of Industrial Establishments is virtually complete and it is updated on a continuous basis.

Sampling error / sampling variance

Not relevant.

Non-response rate

Approximately 30 per cent in terms of establishments covered by the sample. Participation in the inquiry is voluntary and the rate of response each quarter is very slow.

Non-sampling errors

Not available.

Conformity with other sources

Published figures are compared with data from other sources (e.g. the annual Census of Industrial Establishments or the monthly production employment estimates).

Available series

The following series are available, by industrial sector:

unadjusted and seasonally adjusted quarterly industrial employment series, for industrial workers and other employees, by sex;
average gross hourly and weekly earnings and hours worked by week, for the following categories:
- all industrial workers (i.e. adult males and females, youths and girls);
- adult male industrial workers;
- adult female industrial workers;
indices of average gross hourly and weekly earnings and indices of hours worked per week for the above categories.
average gross weekly earnings for the following categories:
- clerical;
- managerial;
- total non-industrial (clerical and managerial together);
indices of average weekly earnings for each of the above categories and for all employees.

History of the survey

The survey was introduced in March 1950 by expanding the scope of the existing quarterly Industrial Production Sample Inquiry. Estimates were initially published for 34 industrial sectors. Updated series were compiled from March 1956, using an ISIC-based activity classification. Indices were constructed on base October 1953=100. Since 1975, the quarterly collection of industrial employment, earnings and hours of work data has been undertaken as an independent inquiry, when the short-term industrial production inquiry was converted to a monthly survey. In June 1979, the NACE activity classification, first used for the 1973 Census of Industrial Production, was introduced into the quarterly survey. Results were then released for 42 NACE sectors and groupings covering Transportable Goods Industries. The coverage of the series has then been progressively extended over the following years. Since 1982, details for a supplementary set of 20 sub-sectors have also been published on request. Prior to March 1985, the estimates of earnings and hours of work related to industrial establishments with three or more employees.

Documentation

Central Statistics Office: Statistical Bulletin (quarterly, (Dublin). idem: Industrial Earnings and Hours Worked (quarterly, ibid.). idem: Industrial Employment (quarterly, ibid.). A full description of the methodology used in compiling the quarterly estimates of industrial employment, earnings and hours worked is given in a special publication, Industrial Employment, Earnings and Hours Worked - Updated quarterly series 1980-1986.

Confidentiality / Reliability criteria

The information provided by employers is strictly confidential in accordance with national and EC laws. Besides, no data are published if figures are calculated from less than three establishments in any sector.

Other information

Data supplied to the ILO for publication

The following estimates (as of September of each year) are published in the Yearbook of Labour Statistics:

paid employment (all employees) in manufacturing and mining and quarrying (Tables 5A, 5b and 6);
average weekly hours paid for (industrial workers) in manufacturing, mining and quarrying and construction (Tables 12A, 12B, 13 and 14);
average hourly earnings (industrial workers) in manufacturing, mining and quarrying and construction (Tables 17A, 17B, 18 and 19).

The corresponding quarterly series of paid employment, hours paid for and hourly earnings in manufacturing, are published in Tables 3, 6 and 8 of the Bulletin of Labour Statistics.