Portugal (1)

Title of the survey

Enquête sur les gains (Survey on earnings)

Organization responsible

The Statistics Department of the Ministère de l'Emploi et de la Sécurité sociale (MESS) is responsible for organizing and conducting the survey. The results are published under the responsibility of the MESS scientific and technical information department.

Periodicity of the survey

Six-monthly.

Objectives of the survey

To assess short-term developments in the average hourly earnings of wage earners and the average monthly earnings of wage earners and salaried employees.

The results are used for comparative studies of earnings levels by sex, sector and occupational category, the harmonization of Statistical Office of the European Communities (EUROSTAT) earnings statistics, and national and international publications.

Main labour topics covered by the survey

Employment, earnings, hours of work and social welfare benefits as well as employers' social security contributions.

Reference period

The entire month of April and October, except for hotels and restaurants: January and July.

Coverage of the survey

Geographical

Whole country.

Industrial

All branches of economic activity except: agriculture, hunting, forestry and fishing; public administration; armed forces; international organizations; domestic services.

Establishments

Enterprises or establishments of all sizes in the formal sector.

Persons

Trabalhadores por conta de outrem (TCO), i.e. workers over the age of 14 years who are bound to the enterprise by a contract of employment during the reference period, on a full-time or part-time basis (employees).

Occupations

The survey identifies four occupational categories: wage earners, salaried employees, directors and apprentices.

Concepts and definitions

Employment

Data are collected separately on the following categories of employees, by sex:

Wage earners: manual workers bound to the enterprise by a contract of employment. Excluded from this category are: foremen, supervisors, clerks of works and site overseers.
Salaried employees: employees bound to the enterprise by a contract of employment who are not counted as wage earners, i.e. foremen and supervisors, office workers, clerks of works, middle and senior managers, senior technicians, commercial workers, etc.
Directors: persons who determine the general policy of the enterprise (president, director-general, members of the management board and board of directors) who receive a fixed basic remuneration. In the case of public sector enterprises, only directors bound to the enterprise by a contract of employment are taken into account. Persons not receiving a fixed basic remuneration are excluded.
Apprentices: workers acquiring technical vocational skills under the guidance of qualified workers.

For these four employee categories, a distinction is made between full-time and part-time employees:

Full-time employees are those who work the normal hours in force in the establishment for the occupational category concerned;
Part-time employees are those who work less than normal hours of work.

Included in the survey coverage are workers who are temporarily absent during the reference period because of paid leave or vocational training, or because of sickness, or employment injury for a period of one month or less, or because of an industrial dispute. The latter are included for the part of the month for which they are paid.

Excluded are workers on military service; workers on unpaid leave performing public duties; workers absent for reasons of illness or employment injury for a period exceeding one month; home workers and unpaid family workers; workers paid exclusively on commission; directors not receiving a fixed basic remuneration; owners of individual enterprises forming a company.

Earnings

These comprise direct wages or salaries (excluding cost-of-living and housing allowances, and family allowances paid directly by the employer), payments for hours not worked and payments in kind in the form of food and drink.

Excluded are: end-of-year, seasonal and similar bonuses; and profit-sharing bonuses.

Wage/salary rates

Not relevant.

Hours of work

The survey covers hours paid for, i.e. all hours for which the workers have received a remuneration, even if they did not work (leave, public holidays, legitimate absences). Hours of work must correspond to the total remuneration reported.

International recommendations

The concept of gross earnings, as defined in the survey, corresponds to the concept of regular earnings contained in the international recommendations. However, it excludes certain regularly paid allowances, free or subsidised housing (and irregularly paid cash bonuses and gratuities).

The concept of hours of work used in the survey corresponds to that of hours paid for. Hours not worked because of sickness, accident, occupational injury or illness are excluded if the absence is of more than one month's duration. In this case they are not paid directly by the establishment.

Classifications

Industrial

The data on employment, earnings and hours of work are classified in accordance with the Classificaçao das Actividades (CAO) 1973, which conforms to the International Standard Industrial Classification of all economic activities (ISIC), Rev.2, 1968.

Occupational

The data are classified by employee category: wage earners, salaried employees, directors and apprentices.

Others

The data are classified by size of establishment (1 to 4, 5 to 9, 10 to 49, 50 to 99, 100 to 199, and 200 or more workers), by employee category, sex, type of employment contract (full-time or part-time) and region.

Sample size and design

Statistical unit

The statistical unit is the enterprise in the following activities: electricity, gas and water; construction; wholesale and retail trades; restaurants and hotels; transport, storage and communication; financing and insurance; real estate and business services. For all other activities covered by the survey, the statistical unit is the establishment.

The concept of an enterprise embraces all public and private sector enterprises, cooperatives, as well as all persons or bodies employing workers covered by a social security scheme or by collective labour regulations. Public institutions are excluded from this definition.

The establishment is defined as a local unit of an enterprise, exclusively or primarily engaged in a single type of economic activity.

Survey universe / sample frame

The survey universe comprises the administrative records Quadros de Pessoal which cover all public and private sector enterprises, cooperatives and all persons or bodies employing workers covered by a social security scheme or by collective labour regulations. The source is updated every year.

In March 1991, the records covered about 140,000 enterprises and 167,000 establishments, employing about 2,150,000 workers.

Sample design

The survey is based on a sample. About 9,500 units employing 800,000 workers are selected as follows: units employing 200 workers or more are included with certainty in the sample; the other units are stratified by activity, by size and by region. The sample is distributed proportionally to the square root of the total workforce.

The sampling fractions are as follows, by size of sampling unit:

1-4 workers: 3.6 per cent;
5-9: 7.5 per cent;
10-49: 12 per cent;
50-99: 39 per cent;
100-199: 61 per cent;
200 and over: 100 per cent.

The sample is updated every six months on the basis of the replies and additional information supplied by enterprises.

Field work

Data collection

The survey is conducted by postal questionnaire during the three months following the reference month. There is a permanent organization for collecting the data.

Survey questionnaire

The survey collects information on the following, according to employee category (directors, salaried employees, wage earners, apprentices) and by sex, distinguishing between full-time and part-time workers:

the average number of workers;
total remunerations paid;
total hours remunerated.

In addition, the total amounts of social benefits and employers' contributions are supplied separately for the reference month.

Instructions concerning definitions, inclusions and exclusions as well as methods of calculation are provided on the back of the questionnaire.

Substitution of sampling units

In the event of closure or change of address, the sampling unit is replaced in the next survey by another unit in the same stratum.

Data processing and editing

The data are processed by computer. They are then edited manually and by computer. The enterprise or establishment is contacted by telephone or letter in the case of missing or inconsistent data. Consistency checks are carried out in respect of earnings and hours of work.

Types of estimates

Totals and averages are calculated. The time units are the hour and the month.

The average number of employees per month is the average of the number of employees on each day of the month.
The average hourly earnings of wage earners in each sampling unit are obtained by dividing the total gross remuneration of wage earners working full time by the total number of hours paid for, for these wage earners.
The average monthly earnings of wage earners and salaried employees is obtained by dividing the total monthly remuneration paid to wage earners and salaried employees working full time by the number of wage earners and salaried employees in question.

The values corresponding to the activity or to activities as a whole are obtained by successive sums and divisions.

Part-time employees, apart from those whose absence has involved a reduction of remuneration of more than three days, are taken into account in the calculation of hours paid for. Missing data are imputed.

Construction of indices

None.

Weighting of sample results

The results are weighted in the following manner:

i: economic activity;
j: size class of unit;
k: region;
n: employee category;
s: sex;
NP_ijk: number of employees in the survey universe (ijk);
np_ijk: number of employees in the sample (ijk);
x_ijksn1: value of the variable x in the surveyed unit 1;
X_ijksn: estimated value of the variable X.

Adjustments

Non-response

No adjustment is made for non-response, as participation in the survey is compulsory, in principle.

Other bias

Not relevant.

Use of benchmark data

Not relevant.

Seasonal variations

None.

Indicators of reliability of the estimates

Coverage of the sampling frame

The administrative records are assumed to cover all enterprises and establishments in the activities covered by the survey.

Sampling error / sampling variance

Not available.

Non-response rate

About 30 per cent in terms of sampling units.

Non-sampling errors

Not available.

Conformity with other sources

Not available.

Available series

The principal series regularly published relate to:

average monthly earnings for each employee category;
hourly earnings for full time wage earners.

Other statistics, while not published, are available in the form of tables on diskette or magnetic tape and may be obtained on request:

average hourly earnings for each employee category;
average number of hours paid for per week for each employee category;
average number of hours paid for per month for each employee category.

History of the survey

In 1984, the INE (Instituto Nacional de Estatística) began to conduct a series of surveys according to the methodology established for harmonized earnings surveys covering, in addition to industry, financing, insurance and hotels.

The total number of hours actually worked during the month was used as the base in calculating hourly earnings, as well as the total remuneration received during the month.

Since the first half of 1989, the INE has delegated the conducting of harmonized earnings surveys to the statistical department of the MESS. Since then, the sample and the questionnaire have been modified. The survey methodology has not been changed, except in respect of hours of work, for which hours paid for during the month are collected rather than hours actually worked.

Other branches of economic activity have been added to the survey: construction and civil engineering; wholesale and retail trade, transport and communication; hotels and restaurants; real estate and business services.

The following changes have been made recently:

breakdown of earnings into (a) basic wage or salary, (b) overtime pay, (c) regularly paid allowances;
breakdown of hours paid for into (a) normal hours of work paid for, (b) overtime hours paid for;
conversion to the Classification of economic activities of the European Communities (NACE) Rev. 1, which is compatible with the International Standard Industrial Classification of all economic activities (ISIC), Rev.3, 1990;
extension of the sample to improve representativeness at the regional level.

Documentation

Ministério de Emprego e da Segurança Social: Informaçao Estatística (sintese) - Ganhos médios (Lisbon).

idem: Ganhos médios - Restaurantes e hoteis (six-monthly, ibid.).

The survey results are published within six months of the reference period.

Confidentiality / Reliability criteria

By virtue of Act No. 6/89 of 15 April concerning the national statistical system, the data collected are covered by statistical secrecy.

Other information

Data supplied to the ILO for publication

The statistics on hourly earnings of wage earners and on hours paid for (since 1989) in non-agricultural activities, manufacturing, mining and quarrying, construction and transport and communication are published in the corresponding tables of the Yearbook of Labour Statistics.

Other sources of data

Portugal conducts several other surveys not described in this volume. These include the Survey on employment in the formal sector, the Survey on wages and salaries by occupation in selected branches of economic activity, and the Survey on wages and salaries by occupation in construction, the data from which are published in Statistics on occupational wages and hours of work and on food prices - October Inquiry results, a special supplement to the Bulletin of Labour Statistics.