Germany

Source of the series:

Collective Agreements.

Title of the series

Tariflöhne, Tarifgehälter.

Organization responsible

Data collection, statistical processing and publication/dissemination of the statistics:

Statistisches Bundesamt (DESTATIS), Division VI B (Federal Statistical Office of Germany).

Main topics covered

Wage and salary amounts for selected groups of workers and employees and normal hours of work.

Periodicity or frequency of availability of the statistics

Half-yearly.

Reference period

The months up to the reporting month (April and October).

Coverage of the statistics

Geographical:

the whole country.

Industrial:

all branches of economic activities except: division 71 (renting of machinery and equipment without operator and of personal and household goods), division 72 (computer and related activities), division 73 (research and development), division 74 (other business activities) and division 80 (education).

Establishments:

not relevant.

Persons:

employees concerned by collective agreements.

Occupations:

data are not collected by occupation or occupational group, but in some collective agreements a number of occupational groups are separately identified and are partially available and presented in the publication.

Concepts and definitions

Employment:

Salaried employees are those employed persons subject to contributions to the social insurance system for Angestellte; wage earners are receivers of wages and fall under the social insurance system for Arbeiter.

Wage/salary rates:

refer to collectively agreed basic time rates of wages applicable to highest seniority levels.

Hours of work:

refer to normal weekly hours of work, as fixed by collective agreements.

Classifications

Branch of economic activity (industry):

Title of the classification:

Classification of all Economic Activities (WZ 93), edition 1993.

Number of groups used for coding:

two-digit numeric codes except 71-74 and 80.

Applied to:

wage/salary rates and hours of work.

Link to ISIC:

the WZ 93 is derived from NACE, Rev.1 and can be linked to ISIC, Rev.3.

Other classifications:

manual and non-manual workers (i.e. wage earners and salaried employees). Both wage earners and salaried employees are classified into "performance groups" "Leistungsgruppen" (or employment categories), which are established for each collective agreement by the Federal Statistical Office in consultation with the social partners concerned on the basis of the various wage and salary categories. Performance groups are based on the level of training, experience and responsibility required for performing the tasks covered by the various earnings categories.
  • Wage earners are classified according to the three performance groups (skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled).
  • Salaried employees are classified according to four performance groups (II to V) and two occupational categories: commercial employees, and technical employees and masters.

    Data collection

    Size and coverage of the administrative system:

    the data cover about 650 collective agreements.

    Data collection method:

    the data are extracted from the records of collective agreements.

    Updating of the administrative system:

    half-yearly.

    Data processing, editing and consistency checks

    All collected data are checked for correctness.

    Adjustments

    None.

    Types of estimates

    Average minimum/negotiated wage and salary rates per hour, day or month, per occupation.

    Construction of indices

    Indices of negotiated standard weekly hours of work and wage and salary rates are computed, by economic activity and region.

    Indicators of reliability of the estimates

    None.

    Available series

  • Agreed wage rates of wage earners
  • Agreed salary rates of salaried employees
  • Normal hours of work
  • Number of days of vacation per year
  • Paid leave
  • Payment during sick leave
  • Special extra pay.

    History of the statistics

    Starting date of the statistical series:

    1949/50.

    Major changes and revisions:

    Presentation in Euro from 2002 onwards (before in DM).

    Documentation and dissemination

    Documentation:

    Statistisches Bundesamt (DESTATIS): Fachserie 16, Reihe 4.1Tariflöhne and Reihe 4.2, Tarifgehälter (Wiesbaden, half-yearly); published some four months after the reference periods (April and October); contains both the statistics and methodological information.

    Idem: Fachserie 16, Reihe 4.3, Index der Tariflöhne und -gehälter (ibd, quarterly).

    Dissemination:

    data are expected to be available on Internet in 2003.

    Data supplied to the ILO for dissemination

    The following statistics are published in Statistics on occupational wages and hours of work and on food prices - October Inquiry results:

    Average hourly, daily and monthly wage and salary rates by occupation in specific industries, covering the largest German Länder (i.e. North-Rhine-Westphalia).

    Statistics of average hourly wage rates of skilled day workers in agriculture (up to 1994) in the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany before 3.10.1990, are available in LABORSTA.