Saint Helena

Source of the series

Tax returns and administrative records.

Title of the series

Employment, wage rates, earnings and hours of work.

Organization responsible

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

Statistics Office, Development and Economic Planning Department.

Main topics covered

Employment, wage and salary rates, earnings, hours of work and income from self-employment.

Periodicity or frequency of availability of the statistics

Yearly.

Reference period

The whole year (from April to March).

Coverage of the statistics

Geographical:

the whole island.

Industrial:

all economic activities.

Establishments:

all types and sizes.

Persons:

all employed persons.

Occupations:

data are collected on wage rates and hours of work by occupation.

Concepts and definitions

Employment:

refers to all persons receiving an income from fulltime or part-time paid employment and from self-employment.

Adult workers are persons aged 15 years and over.

Full-time workers are persons who work an average of 36.25 hours per week.

Earnings:

refer to total annual cash remuneration as reported to the Tax authorities, i.e. gross cash earnings including direct wages and all bonuses, allowances and compensation in cash.

Wage rates:

refer to basic wage and salary rates.

Hours of work:

refer to normal weekly hours of work, as fixed by laws or regulations: 35 hours for monthly paid workers, and 37.5 hours per week for weekly paid workers.

Income related to paid employment:

see under Earnings.

Income related to self-employment:

refers to gross cash profit generated by the self-employment activity, after deduction of consumption of fixed capital.

Classifications

Branch of economic activity (industry):

Title of the classification:

not available.

Number of groups used for coding:

17 tabulation categories.

Applied to:

all data.

Link to ISIC and level:

Rev.3 (1990).

Occupation:

Title of the classification:

not available.

Number of groups used for coding:

nine major groups.

Applied to:

all data.

Link to ISCO and level:

ISCO-88.

Status in employment:

employees and self-employed.

Other classifications:

by sex. Wage rates of Government workers are also classified by level of skill.

Data collection

Size and coverage of the administrative system:

covers all tax records filled in by the employed population and government records.

Data collection method:

collation of data from these tax and other administrative records. The data on wage rates and earnings are obtained from the Department of Finance.

Updating of the administrative system:

yearly.

Data processing, editing and consistency checks

Data are processed by computer; different variables are crosstabulated and various checks are made within the computer database.

Adjustments

None.

Types of estimates

Total number of persons employed, average weekly and monthly wage and salary rates, average monthly earnings and average weekly normal hours of work.

Construction of indices

None.

Indicators of reliability of the estimates

Coverage of the administrative system:

exhaustive.

Available series

Number of employed persons by sector and category (employees and the self-employed);

Average monthly earnings;

Average wage rates by level of skill and occupation;

Normal hours of work.

History of the statistics

Starting date of the statistical series:

not available.

Major changes and revisions:

none.

Documentation and dissemination

Documentation:

Statistics Office: Statistical Yearbook (Jamestown, annual); published about one year after the reference period of the statistics.

Dissemination:

data which do not appear in national publications can be made available upon request.

Data supplied to the ILO for dissemination

Statistics of average monthly earnings by economic activity and sex are published in the Yearbook of Labour Statistics.

Statistics of normal hours of work and average wage rates by occupation are published in Statistics on occupational wages and hours of work and on food prices - October Inquiry results.