Romania - 2

Title of the survey

Number of employees and Labour Cost (Survey S3).

Organization responsible

National Commission for Statistics, Division of labour statistics and social protection. Office of wages statistics.

Periodicity of the survey

Annual.

Objectives of the survey

To estimate the average number of employees and the average gross and net earnings, income and labour cost.

Main labour topics covered by the survey

Employment, earnings, labour cost and enterprise practices with regard to the system of payment for time not worked and the social security and pension schemes.

Reference period

For all variables: the whole year;

For employment by sex: the 31st of December of each year.

Coverage of the survey

Geographical

The whole country.

Industrial

All branches of economic activity, except defence; compulsory social security; private households with employed persons; and the armed forces.

Establishments

Enterprises of all types of ownership and size.

Persons

All national employees as well as expatriate workers and the self-employed working on an agreement basis for an enterprise. Foreign workers are excluded.

Occupations

The survey does not collect data by occupation.

Concepts and definitions

Employment

Employees are all persons with an individual employment contract in an economic or social unit, who work for a fixed or unlimited period, on a full- or part-time basis, in exchange of a remuneration in cash or in kind. They include working proprietors and directors who receive a salary, wage earners, salaried employees, trainees, workers on probation, piece workers, casual, temporary and seasonal workers. Persons temporarily absent from work because of paid or unpaid vacation, industrial dispute, sickness or accident are also included.

Wage earners (i.e. production and related workers) are identified separately from the other employees.

Excluded from employees are apprentices, home workers, workers sub-contracted from other enterprises or from temporary work agencies, unpaid family workers and persons temporarily absent from work for active military service.

Other persons employed include the self-employed (i.e. persons working on an agreement basis for a determined period) and expatriate workers (employees working abroad, but on the enterprise's payroll).

Labour cost

Labour cost is defined as the sum of all expenditure incurred by employers (enterprises) for the utilisation of labour. Labour cost comprises all the elements of direct cost reflected in the employees' income, and other costs related to the labour force, i.e.

Direct wages and salaries, of which,
- premium pay for overtime, late shift, holiday work, etc.,
Remuneration for time not worked, of which,
- Payments for annual vacation, long-service and assimilated paid leave,
- Time off granted with pay,
Bonuses and gratuities, of which
- Year-end and seasonal bonuses,
- Profit-sharing bonuses,
- Additional payments in respect of vacation, etc.
Payments in kind (food, drink, fuel and other payments in kind),
Cost of workers' housing borne by employers (housing allowances, grants, cost for enterprise-owned dwellings, etc.)
Employers' social security expenditure (statutory and collectively agreed, contractual or non-obligatory contributions to social security, pension and assimilated schemes)
Cost of vocational training,
Cost of kindergarten, nurseries, and educational and cultural services,
Cost of canteens, indemnities for meals and antidote meals,
Expenditure related to sanitary material,
Reduction of costs of leave and health treatment tickets,
Payments of administration counsellors and managers,
Cost of work clothes,
Cost of transport of workers to and from work,
Other costs related to collective agreements and contracts specific to various industries.

Information is collected separately on bonuses paid on a regular and irregular basis and on the value of payments in kind.

Labour cost data are collected for all employees together.

Hours of work

Not relevant.

International recommendations

The definition and components of labour cost closely conform to the international guidelines.

Classifications

The above-mentioned groups of components can be linked to the International Standard Classification of Labour Cost (ISCLC-1966).

Industrial

Data are classified according to the Classification of Activities of the National Economy (CANE), at the two-digit level. This classification is convertible to the Statistical Classification of economic activities of the European Communities (NACE, Rev. 1) and to the International Standard Industrial Classification of all economic activities (ISIC), Rev. 3.

Occupational

Not relevant.

Others

The number of employees, earnings and labour cost are classified by district.

Sample size and design

Statistical unit

The sampling unit is the enterprise, defined as the smallest combination of legal units having legal personality: it has its own patrimony, can entail contracts and defend its interests in the court of justice. It is a district organisational unit, having a certain power of decision.

Survey universe / sample frame

The survey universe consists of the Statistical Register (REGIS) which covers all active civil enterprises (i.e. excluding units of national defence) in Romania, as well as public administration units. It covers about 310,000 units representing some 6 million employees.

The frame for the survey sample part is derived from the REGIS and administered by the National Commission for Statistics. The sample frame is updated quarterly on the basis of the Fiscal Register and National Commerce Register, and twice a year from the records provided by the Ministry of Finance.

Sample design

National state-owned enterprises, units from public administration, units in financing and insurance, companies and enterprises having local units in more than two districts are surveyed exhaustively. For the remaining enterprises, a stratified sampling scheme is adopted: by district, economic activity (11 groups) and size class of expenditure on personnel remuneration or turnover, if the former is missing. The sample size by stratum is calculated using the Neyman allocation. Within each stratum (1,465 in total), units are sampled with equal probabilities.

The sample size is of about 28,000 enterprises (9.7% of the total number of enterprises), covering about 4,800,000 employees (82.8%). The sampling fraction ranges from 4/10,000 in wholesale and retail trade, to 96/100 in industry.

The sample is updated each year.

Field work

Data collection

It takes place in January of each year. The survey forms must be returned by mail to the Division of labour statistics before 30 January.

Survey questionnaire

Not available.

Substitution of sampling units

Sampling units where there is total non-response are not replaced.

Data processing and editing

Data are processed and edited by computer. Responses are coded onto the questionnaires, then entered, verified and edited by computer. In cases of missing data, respondents are contacted by telephone.

Types of estimates

Total number of employees by district and group of economic activity; Average monthly earnings by district and group of economic activity; Total and average labour cost per year, by district and group of economic activity.

The average number of employees is obtained from a simple arithmetical mean, by dividing the sum of the daily actual number of employees during a calendar month by the total number of days of that month. Part-time workers are converted to full-time equivalents.

The total number of employees on 31 December of each year is disaggregated by sex.

Construction of indices

Index numbers are not constructed.

Weighting of sample results

The survey results are weighted using the Horvitz-Thompson estimator (the survey variables are weighted by the inverse of the inclusion probability, multiplied by the inverse of the response probability (to compensate for non-response).

Adjustments

Non-response

An adjustment for total non-response is provided for in the weighting procedure: the inclusion probabilities are adjusted by the inverse of the response probabilities, calculated for homogeneous strata respondents.

Other bias

Where relevant, a second adjustment is made by marginal calibration on the distribution of employees from the updated sampling frame.

Use of benchmark data

Not relevant.

Indicators of reliability of the estimates

Coverage of the sampling frame

The sampling frame is assumed to cover all active enterprises.

Sampling error / sampling variance

The typical standard error ranges from 2% to 5%, depending on the group of economic activity.

Non-response rate

In the 1997 survey, it was about 23.3% in terms of number of units.

Non-sampling errors

Not available.

Conformity with other sources

Not applicable.

Estimates for non-survey years

Not relevant.

Available series

Average monthly labour cost and labour cost by components:

gross direct payments
gross payments for hours not worked
premiums and bonuses
employers' contributions for social protection
other employers' costs,

by industry group and district.

History of the survey

The survey started in 1993. Changes and revisions have been made to follow changes in the national legislation. In 2000, it is planned to include the measurement of hours actually worked, required to calculate average hourly labour cost.

Documentation

National Commission for Statistics: Romanian Statistical Yearbook (Bucharest). The survey results are published one year after the survey reference period.

Published data can also be made available on diskette, upon request.

Web-site address: http://www.cns.ro

Confidentiality / Reliability criteria

Details in respect of individual enterprises are strictly confidential.

Other information

Data supplied to the ILO for publication

The following data are published in the Yearbook of Labour Statistics: Average yearly labour cost per employee in manufacturing, by major group of industry.