Lithuania - 4

Title of the survey

Labour cost survey.

Organization responsible

Statistics Lithuania, Labour Statistics Division.

Periodicity of the survey

Annual, with reference to 1994, 1995 and 1996; thereafter, four-yearly.

Objectives of the survey

To estimate average annual and hourly labour cost. This type of statistical information is particularly important for economic, social and political decision-making and employment-creation policies.

Users include Government institutions and ministries; social insurance funds; the Central Bank; trade union and employers' organisations concerned with collective bargaining; economic, social and manpower planners and policy makers; individual users and international organisations.

Main labour topics covered by the survey

Employment, hours of work and labour cost, as well as information on enterprises' practices with regard to social security and pension schemes, systems of payments for time not worked, etc.

Reference period

The calendar year, for all variables.

Coverage of the survey

Geographical

The whole country.

Industrial

In 1997 (with ref. to 1996): agriculture; mining and quarrying; manufacturing; electricity, gas and water supply; construction; wholesale and retail trade; hotels and restaurants; transport, storage and communications; financial intermediation; and real estate, renting and business activities (Divisions A-K of NACE, Rev.1 and ISIC, Rev.3).

Establishments

Enterprises, establishments and organisations with 10 or more employees in the surveyed activities.

Persons

All employees.

Excluded are working proprietors, members of boards and councils of enterprises, home workers and unpaid contributing family workers. Women on maternity and child-care leave (up to 3 years) and persons on temporary military or civil service are also excluded.

Occupations

Data are not collected by occupation.

Concepts and definitions

Employment

Data are collected separately on full-time employees, part-time employees and apprentices.

Employees include manual and non-manual workers, working directors, commission agents, piece workers, temporary, seasonal and casual workers, young workers between 14 and 16 years of age (provided a written agreement has been signed with one of the parents or tutors), and persons temporarily absent from work for paid vacation or holiday, temporary lay off, etc.

Full-time employees are persons (excluding apprentices) whose regular working hours are the same as the statutory, collectively agreed or customary hours worked in the enterprise. According to the law on safety protection at work, normal hours of work cannot exceed 40 hours per week. Included are employees who work under a shortened working schedule provided for by law or collective agreement but who receive the average wage and salary for full-time work.

Part-time employees are persons (excluding apprentices) whose regular working hours are lower than the statutory, collectively agreed or customary hours of work in the enterprise, whether daily, weekly, or monthly as agreed (i.e. half-day, three-quarter time, etc.).

Apprentices are persons whose productivity is predominated by vocational training (e.g. employees changing qualification; high school, college or university students under practice; employees on probation) and who are working under an apprenticeship contract.

Part-time employees are converted into full-time equivalent units and the total number of employees in full-time units is calculated.

Data are also collected on the number of women in June of the reference year.

Labour cost

This is defined as the total expenditure borne by employers in order to employ workers. Labour costs include (1) compensation of employees; (2) vocational training costs; (3) other expenditures; less (4) subsidies received.

1) Compensation of employees is the total remuneration payable by an employer to an employee in return for work done during the reference period. It is broken down into:

(a) Wages and salaries in cash and in kind, i.e.:

Direct remuneration: gross amounts, before deduction of taxes, paid regularly at each pay period during the year. It includes:
- Basic wages and salaries;
- Direct remuneration calculated on the basis of time worked, output or piecework;
- Remuneration and additional payments for overtime, night work, shift work, work on weekends or public holidays,
- Bonuses and allowances paid regularly at each pay period, including workplace bonuses for noise, risk, difficult work, shift or continuous work, night work, work on Sundays and public holidays; individual performance bonuses, bonuses for output, production, productivity, responsibility, diligence, punctuality, length of service, qualifications and special knowledge.
Bonuses: all payments which are not made regularly, including additional vacation pay and irregular payments which are laid down in advance irrespective of the results or activity of the enterprise, or individual or collective performance (e.g. Christmas or Easter Bonuses, 13th month, anniversary, holiday payments).
Payments for days not worked: remuneration paid for annual vacation and other days not worked in compliance with the law or collective agreement (e.g. when the employee is on probation, vocational training courses or paid study vacations; paid leave for wedding, funeral, etc.).
Payments in kind: all goods and services made available to employees through the enterprise, including:
- company products provided free of charge for private use, or sold to staff below cost price,
- staff housing: expenditure by the enterprise to assist employees with housing, including expenditure on housing owned by the enterprise (maintenance and administration of housing, and taxes and insurance relating to such housing); reduced-interest loans for the construction or purchase of housing by staff (the difference between the market interest rate and the rate granted); allowances and subsidies granted to employees in connection with their housing, and installation allowances (but excluding removal allowances).

(b) Employers' social contributions:

Statutory social security contributions, i.e. contributions made compulsory by law, equal to 30% of wages and salaries (social security contributions for apprentices are excluded);
Other social contributions: all other contributions in compliance with the collective agreement (e.g. for a car insurance if an employee often goes on business trips by car);
Guaranteed remuneration in the event of sickness, for the first two calendar days of sickness in compliance with the social security law;
Guaranteed remuneration in the event of short-time working: payment of the difference between remuneration for hours actually worked and average wages and salaries;
Family (social) benefits: benefits in case of wedding, child-birth, funeral and other benefits in compliance with collective agreements.

2) Vocational training costs: all expenditure on training and further training of employees, in particular:

Remuneration of apprentices,
Social security contributions for apprentices,
Other vocational training costs: all other material and vocational training costs, expenditure on vocational training services and facilities, fees of outside instructors, expenditure on participation in courses, teaching aids and tools used for training, etc. Subsidies linked to vocational training are deducted.

3) Other expenditure:

(a) Recruitment costs: sums paid to recruitment agencies, expenditure on job advertisements in the press, travel expenses paid to candidates called for interview, installation allowances to newly-recruited staff;

(b) Other expenditure not mentioned elsewhere (covering indirect benefits):

canteens and meal vouchers,
cultural, sporting and leisure facilities and services,
kindergartens,
staff shops,
transport costs for journeys between home and the usual place of work,
payments to trade union funds and costs of work committees.

All such expenditure includes small repairs and maintenance of buildings and installation, and depreciation; work clothes which may be worn outside the work place, etc.

Less,

4) Subsidies: i.e. all amounts received in the form of subsidies of a general nature to refund part or all of the cost of direct remuneration, but not intended to cover social security or vocational training costs. They do not include refunds paid to employers by social security institutions or supplementary insurance funds.

Labour cost data are collected for all employees together.

Hours of work

Data are collected on total hours actually worked and total hours paid for, separately for full-time employees, part-time employees and apprentices.

Hours actually worked include hours provided by law, collective agreement, labour contract or customary working hours (i.e. normal hours of work); overtime hours; time spent on tasks such as work preparation, preparing, maintaining and cleaning tools and machines and writing up work cards and reports; time spent at the workplace during which no work is done owing to, for example, machine stoppages, accidents or occasional lack of work, but for which payments are made under the employment contract; and short rest periods at the workplace, including tea and coffee breaks.

Hours paid for include hours actually worked and hours paid for but not worked (e.g. for vacation, short-time working, business trip, first two days of sick leave, and other paid days off doing public duties, provided average wages and salaries are paid). They exclude time corresponding to meal breaks, weekly rest days, time not worked due to military-related service, disciplinary suspension and commuting time.

International recommendations

The definitions of labour cost and hours actually worked conform to the international recommendations.

Classifications

The data on labour cost are classified by component group (see above, under Concepts and definitions).

Industrial

The survey data are classified according to the Standard Classification of Economic Activities of the European Communities (NACE) Rev. 1, which is based on the International Standard Industrial Classification of all economic activities (ISIC), Rev.3.

Occupational

Not relevant.

Others

By employee category (full- and part-time); size of enterprises (10-49 employees, 50-249, 250-499 and 500 and more employees); and sector (public and private).

Sample size and design

Statistical unit

The sampling and reporting unit is the enterprise, establishment or organisation.

Survey universe / sample frame

The sampling frame is drawn from the Statistical Profile Business Register, which is based on the Administrative Business Register. The former was updated on the basis of the annual full-enumeration Wages and Salaries Survey. In 1996, it consisted of 5,496 units, which represented 575,794 employees.

Sample design

Stratified simple random sampling is used. Stratification is by economic activity and size of enterprises. In 1996, the sample covered 4,227 enterprises and 503,786 employees (respectively 77% and 87.5% of the sampling frame).

Field work

Data collection

This takes place in March-April of the year following the reference year, by mailed questionnaires which are to be returned to Statistics Lithuania by the 15th of April.

Survey questionnaire

The questionnaire seeks information on the characteristics of the enterprise and consists of six sections:

I. Number of employees for each month of the reference year by employee category (full-time, part-time and apprentices), of which - number of women in June;

II. Labour cost (in 1996) by components:

A. Wages and salaries: total amount of gross earnings for all employees, of which:

1. Wages and salaries for separate groups of employees:

advantages and other payments to apprentices,
wages and salaries of enterprise's training staff,
wages and salaries of staff working in health services, kindergarten and other staff facilities;

2. Other components of wages and salaries (excluding payments for apprentices):

additional vacation payments,
other special benefits provided for in collective agreement,
extra payments from saving funds, profit, bonuses for rationalisation proposals, etc.,
vacation payments,
sickness allowances paid by the employer for the first two days,
remuneration for other days not worked prescribed by law,
remuneration for other days not worked due to collective agreement;

B. Non-wage labour cost:

1. Employers' contributions for social insurance scheme:

compulsory social contributions for employees,
compulsory social contributions for apprentices,
contributions to pension funds,
other contributions;

2. Allowances and other supplementary expenditure:

employer's allowances in addition to sickness benefits due under collective agreement,
allowances granted for medicine, etc.,
guaranteed remuneration in the event of short-time working,
family benefits (allowances for marriage, birth, death, etc.),
staff housing,
payments in kind (excluding canteen subsidies),
compensation upon termination of employment,
cost of materials and outside service for vocational and further training courses,
cost of canteen, remuneration of outside staff, canteen subsidies,
cost of materials and outside services of enterprise's health services and other staff facilities, kindergarten maintenance, etc.
business-trip expenditure,
recruitment costs,
study grants, continued remuneration in case of maternity or occupational accident,
other payments prescribed by law,
other employer's expenditure;

III. Employer's expenditure reimbursed from State Funds

IV. Total number of hours paid for and hours actually worked during the reference year, separately for full-time employees, part-time employees and apprentices;

V. Temporary staff:

payments made to firms providing temporary workers,
number of hours paid for, for workers provided by such firms;

VI. Number of days paid for but not worked during the reference year, by type of days paid for:

number of paid vacation days,
number of paid sick leave days,
number of other days paid for in compliance with the legislation,
number of other days paid for according to collective agreement.

Explanatory notes on definitions, inclusions, etc. are provided along with the questionnaire.

Substitution of sampling units

In case of total non-response, sampling units are not replaced and imputation is used (see below, under Adjustments).

Data processing and editing

The data are checked by staff of Statistics Lithuania, then coded and processed by computer. In case of missing or inconsistent data, contacts are made by telephone. Consistency and logic checks are carried out by computer.

Types of estimates

Totals for all employees and averages per employee, per year and per hour; Structure by labour cost components; Distributions.

Average annual labour cost per employee is calculated by dividing total annual labour costs by the total number of employees in full-time units.

Part-time employees are converted to full-time equivalents and the total number of employees in full-time units is obtained as follows:

Ds = (DVn / DVv) * Dv + Dv

Where,

Ds = total number of employees in full-time units,

DVn = total hours worked by part-time employees,

DVv = total hours worked by full-time employees,

Dv = number of full-time employees

Hourly labour cost is calculated by dividing total annual labour costs by the annual number of hours actually worked.

Construction of indices

None.

Weighting of sample results

All estimates of totals are extrapolated using the Horvitz-Thompson estimator:

where

Y_k: gross earnings fund or number of employees of sample unit k,
P_k: probability for unit k to be included,
n: sample size.

This estimator was chosen to account for the fact that a significant number of sampled units had characteristics (economic activity, type of ownership, number of employees) which had changed by comparison with those recorded in the sampling frame.

Adjustments

Non-response

In case of total non-response from an existing unit, data are imputed on the basis of the stratum average values of the variables of interest.

Other bias

Adjustments are made to take account of changes in type of activity, number of employees and type of ownership. In the weighting procedure, the real inclusion probabilities are calculated.

Use of benchmark data

Not relevant.

Indicators of reliability of the estimates

Coverage of the sampling frame

The sampling frame is assumed to cover the total population of enterprises, institutions and organisations with 10 and more employees, excluding sole proprietorships.

Sampling error / sampling variance

The coefficient of variation is required not to exceed 3% for hourly labour costs.

The relative standard errors with a 95% confidence interval are calculated for employment, labour cost and hours of work estimates.

Non-response rate

In 1996, 7.4% of enterprises did not return the questionnaires: 5.2% had legitimate grounds (bankrupt, liquidation, suspension of economic activity) and 2.2% were true non-respondents.

Non-sampling errors

They can stem from the inability to obtain the required information, insufficient accuracy of the Statistical Register of enterprises, mistakes in providing, recording or coding the data, etc.

Conformity with other sources

None.

Estimates for non-survey years

None.

Available series

Published results include:

Average annual labour cost and structure in 1996,

Average annual labour cost per employee by size class of enterprises,

Average hourly labour cost (per hours actually worked) by size class of enterprises,

Average daily hours actually worked by employee category,

Average daily hours actually worked by full-time employees by size class of enterprises,

Distribution of employees by employee category and by size class of enterprises (in percentage)

Distribution of enterprises by size class, by sector (public and private) and for the whole economy.

History of the survey

The first pilot Labour Cost survey was conducted in 1995 with reference to 1994. It covered selected economic activities: pharmacy, financial intermediation, hotels and restaurants and travel agencies. In 1996 (with reference to 1995), the survey covered construction only. In 1997, it was extended to Division A-K of NACE Rev.1 (or ISIC, Rev.3).

The Labour Cost survey is conducted according to the guidelines of the EU Statistical Office (EUROSTAT) and will be carried out every four years.

Documentation

Statistics Lithuania: Labour Cost, 1996 (annual, Vilnius). The normal time lag between the reference period of data collection and the release of results is one year.

Web-site: http://www.std.lt

Confidentiality / Reliability criteria

Data are not disseminated (a) if they cover three or less enterprises by economic activity or if one of them represents 70% of the number of employees in the stratum, or (b) if the relative standard error is higher than 10%.

Other information

Data supplied to the ILO for publication

Statistics of average hourly labour cost in manufacturing (for 1996) are published in the Yearbook of Labour Statistics.