National Accounts and Employment Data Group of Experts on National Accounts Geneva April 2006

Purposes of employment data in the national accounts Consistency checks (use of all available information in the NA compilation) General user interest in reconciliation between NA labour inputs and basic labour market statistics. Produktivity analysis Employment effects (such as input-output impact analysis)

SNA Chapter XVII Population and labour Input

Population and labour measures Stocks (number of persons, point in time) Population Employment Transactions Jobs (average end of quarter/month) (Full time equivalent employment) Total hours worked during period (possibly broken down by educational level etc.)

Major sources for employment data in national accounts (Population census) Labour Force Surveys (LFS) Enterprise/establishment based surveys Register based employment statistics Labour accounting systems

Problems in compiling employment data Definition of employment (ILO) Classifications by economic activity Economic units Informal economy Globalisation

General observations on LFS LFS (with certain adjustments) as the overall benchmark for employment in the eoconomy. Only the LFS measures hours worked The classification by economic activity in the LFS is not reliable enough (sample size, classification method) for direct use in the national accounts. (Overruled by establishment surveys/administrative data and other)

Adjustments of employment data to national accounts concepts Adjustment of total: Net non-resident employees (national vs. domestic) Hidden economy Reallocation by economic activity (neutral ) Alternative sources by economic activity Special NA activity classification Adjustment to compensation of employees General reconciliation algorithm

Hidden economy and employment Figure 1 Hidden economy

Special NA economic activity classification ”Pure” activities in national accounts such as for example: Agriculture Construction Trade Employment must be reclassified to be consistent with the economic activity classification.

Other classification issues Ancillary corporations (SNA ) created specifically to employ all staff of a parent corporation More generally labour contracting activities (belonging to the ISIC group ”Labour recruitment and provision of personnel”)

Questions Preliminary vs. final data (annual and quarterly) Transparency and the reconciliation process. (Micro-macro links?) Restrictions on the concialition process (on increases in hourly wages and/or labour productivity etc.)

Reliability of estimates by industry VariableCoefficient of variation Output1 per cent Intermediate consumption2 per cent (Assumed correlation between output and intermediate consumption 0,5) Employment1 per cent Prices1 per cent Increase in labour productivity between period 0 and period 1 95 per cent confidence interval: Plus/minus 5 percentage points

Questions on Russian estimates Restrictions on the reconciliation process (using the three sources: LFS, establishment surveys and administrative registers) Employment data used to estimate production in branches dominated by small enterprises Labour productivity: Trends, but not levels ”Pure” types of activity (product groups) Labour productivity per unit of output by ”pure” types of activity. For assessing industrial labour requirements.

Questions on the Canadian estimates Restrictions build into the multistop reconciliation algorithm (using the three sources: LFS, establishment surveys and administrative registers). How are the variance estimates (sampling and non-sampling errors) made? Interpretation of the levels of labour productivity Use of LFS data in construction, retail trade and hotels and restaurants (in spite of lack of precise industry code) to capture clandestine work.