Labour market

Labour market statistics measure the involvement of individuals, households and businesses in the labour market. They cover short-term and structural aspects of the labour market, both for the supply and the demand side, in monetary and non-monetary terms.

The data are mainly sourced from Eurostat.

Employment and population have traditionally been considered auxiliary variables in national accounts, aimed to calculate ratios like value added, output, or labour costs per inhabitant or per employed person. Employment however has gained importance and nowadays it is an endogenous variable in the national accounts framework. Quarterly employment also stands now as a key short term economic indicator. National accounts, however, do not provide information on social or gender aspects of employment. The classical and most reliable source for this information is the Labour Force Survey.

The ESA 2010 distinguishes two employment concepts depending on the geographical coverage: resident persons in employment (i.e. the national scope of employment) and employment in resident production units irrespective of the place of residence of the employed person (i.e. domestic scope).

The ESA 2010 recognises several employment measures: persons, hours worked and jobs. Presented here are mainly employment data measured in persons and in hours worked.

These data were formerly available as part of the MNA (National Accounts Main Aggregates) data set but then they were moved to a new data set – ENA. While the first dimension of the series keys change to ENA, the remainder of the series keys remain unchanged.

ESA95 National Accounts

Gross domestic product (GDP) and its components, value added by economic activity and employment statistics are part of the ESA 95 annual and quarterly national accounts produced by the European Commission (Eurostat) and national statistical authorities. Euro area results are estimated using information for the individual countries.

GDP is the value of an economy’s total output of goods and services less intermediate consumption, plus net taxes on products and imports. GDP can be broken down by output, expenditure or income components. The main expenditure aggregates that make up GDP are household final consumption, government final consumption, gross fixed capital formation, changes in inventories, and imports and exports of goods and services (including intra-euro area trade).

Employment covers employees and the self-employed working in resident production units. Employment data are measured in number of persons in employment and total hours worked; other possible measures for employment are number of jobs and full-time equivalents.

The GDP deflators and unit labour costs and its components (compensation per employee and labour productivity) are calculated by the ECB based on the ESA95 national accounts data.

The GDP deflators are the ratios of the series in current prices and volume series, where the current price series for the countries are adjusted for national exchange rate movements before joining the euro area.

Labour productivity reflects the output that can be produced with a given input of labour. It can be measured in several ways, but is commonly measured as GDP divided by either total employment (by people in employment, i.e. including both employees and self-employed) or total hours worked. The headline ECB measure calculates labour productivity as GDP divided by persons in employment.

Compensation per employee is the total remuneration, in cash or in kind, that is payable by employers to employees in return for work, i.e. gross wages and salaries, as well as bonuses, overtime payments and employers’ social security contributions, divided by the total number of employees.

Unit labour costs are a measure of total labour costs per unit of output calculated as the ratio of compensation per employee to labour productivity (defined as GDP per person employed).

Capital stock data are estimated by the ECB based on available national capital stock data in the ESA 95 framework. The gross capital stock is defined as the value of all fixed assets still in use. Fixed assets are all produced assets that are used repeatedly or continuously in the production process for more than a year. Main assets types are: Metal products, machinery and transport equipment, housing, non-residential construction and other products (including products of agriculture, forestry, fisheries and aquaculture). It excludes land. Net capital stock is the gross capital, at a point in time, less the consumption of fixed capital accrued up to that point. It takes into account the depreciation of the assets through time as a result of physical deterioration, foreseeable obsolescence or normal accidental damage.

Unemployment rates published by the European Commission (Eurostat) and conform to International Labour Organisation (ILO) guidelines. They refer to persons actively seeking work as a share of the labour force, using harmonised criteria and definitions.

Please refer to the EU labour force survey – methodology and Unemployment statistics.

Where annual and quarterly Labour Force Survey data have not yet been published, annual and quarterly data are derived as simple averages of the monthly data.

The Main aggregates in the national accounts (MNA dataset) include gross domestic product (GDP), value added by main economic activity, main expenditure components and aggregated income statistics. These data are collected and disseminated by the European Commission (Eurostat) and the national statistical authorities.

The MNA dataset also includes additional indicators calculated by the ECB such as implicit GDP deflators, contributions to growth, unit labour costs and its components (compensation per employee and labour productivity), as well as business investment. Data for the euro area / EU and the European countries are available.

Gross domestic product (GDP) and its components - value added by economic activity, expenditure and income statistics - are part of the ESA 2010 annual and quarterly national accounts produced by the European Commission (Eurostat) and national statistical authorities. Euro area results are estimated using information for the individual countries.

GDP is the value of an economy’s total output of goods and services less intermediate consumption, plus net taxes on products and imports. GDP can be also broken down by expenditure or income components. The main expenditure aggregates that make up GDP are household final consumption, government final consumption, gross fixed capital formation, changes in inventories, and imports and exports of goods and services (including intra-euro area trade) while the income components include gross operating surplus and mixed income, compensation of employees, taxes on production and imports, and subsidies.

The GDP deflators and unit labour costs and its components (compensation per employee and labour productivity) are calculated by the ECB based on the ESA 2010 national accounts data.

The GDP deflators are the ratios of the series in current prices and volume series, where the current price series for the countries are adjusted for national exchange rate movements before joining the euro area.

Unit labour costs are a measure of total labour costs per unit of output calculated as the ratio of compensation per employee to labour productivity (defined as GDP per person employed).

Labour productivity reflects the output that can be produced with a given input of labour. It can be measured in several ways, but is commonly measured as GDP divided by either total employment (by people in employment, i.e. including both employees and self-employed) or total hours worked. The headline ECB measure calculates labour productivity as GDP divided by persons in employment.

Compensation per employee is the total remuneration, in cash or in kind, that is payable by employers to employees in return for work, i.e. gross wages and salaries, as well as bonuses, overtime payments and employers’ social security contributions, divided by the total number of employees.

For more information refer to ESA2010 manual and ESA2010 Transmission Program (Table 1).