National Accounts and Employment Data

1. National Accounts and Employment Data Group of Experts on National Accounts Geneva 25-28 April 2006 bth@dst.dk

2. 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)

3. SNA Chapter XVII Population and labour Input

4. 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.)

5. 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

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

7. 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)

8. 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

9. Hidden economy and employment Figure 1 Hidden economy

10. 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.

11. Other classification issues • Ancillary corporations (SNA 4.40-44) 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”)

12. 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.)

13. Reliability of estimates by industry

14. 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.

15. 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.