REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL on implementation of Regulation (EC) No 453/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council on quarterly statistics on Community job vacancies
Date: 2019-08-13
Institutions: European Commission, Eurostat
Subjects: EU Member State, EU statistics, application of EU law, data collection, disclosure of information, employment statistics, job vacancy

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   EUROPEAN COMMISSION  Brussels, 13.8.2019  COM(2019) 368 final  REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL on implementation of Regulation (EC) No 453/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council on quarterly statistics on Community job vacancies   
 
 
1. 

1.1 

INTRODUCTION 

Background 

Job  vacancy  statistics  (JVS)  show  the  number  of  jobs  vacant  at  a  particular  moment.  They 
correspond to the part of labour demand that is not met by labour supply and thus provide key 
information on the size and structure of labour market mismatches. 

Regulation (EC) No 453/2008 of the European Parliament and the Council of 23 April 2008 
on  quarterly  statistics  on  Community  job  vacancies1  (‘the  JVS  Regulation’)  establishes  the 
framework for producing and evaluating quarterly job vacancy statistics. 

Article  10  of  the  JVS  Regulation  requires  the  Commission  to  report  to  the  European 
Parliament  and  the  Council  on  the  implementation  of  the  Regulation  by  24 June 2010  and 
every  three  years  thereafter.  The  purpose  of  the  report  is  to  assess  the  quality  of  (a)  the 
statistics provided by Member States and (b) the European aggregates, and to identify areas 
where improvements could be made. 

This is the Commission’s fourth report to the European Parliament and the Council2. It draws 
on  experience  of  providing  data  at  quarterly  intervals  and  on  documentation  provided  by 
Member States in their annual quality reports. As previous reports have analysed back series, 
this report focuses on the quality of the JVS received since those reports. It examines the JVS 
sent to the Commission for the reference quarters from the first quarter of 2016 (2016Q1) to 
the fourth quarter of 2018 (2018Q4). 

Section  2 presents  the last three  years’ progress  in  implementing the JVS Regulation,  while 
Section 3 assesses the quality of job vacancy statistics. Finally, Section 4 draws conclusions 
and suggests ways to meet users’ expectations better in future. 

1.2 

Legal framework 

To  complement  the  general  framework  established  by  the  JVS  Regulation,  the  Commission 
adopted two implementing regulations: 

-  Commission  Regulation  (EC)  No  1062/2008,3  which  defines  the  seasonal  adjustment 
procedures to be applied from the first quarter of 2014, the structure and content of the annual 
quality reports which the Member States are to supply to the Commission, and the dates on 
which these reports are to be sent; 

-  Commission  Regulation  (EC)  No  19/2009,4  which  defines  the  term  ‘job  vacancy’,  sets 
deadlines  for  sending  data  and  specifies  the  periods  to  be  covered  by  the  first  set  of  data 

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4 

OJ L 145, 4.6.2008, p. 234. 
See previous report, COM (2016) 449 of 8 July 2016. 
Commission  Regulation  (EC)  No  1062/2008  of  28  October  2008  implementing  Regulation  (EC)  No 
453/2008  of  the  European  Parliament  and  of  the  Council  on  quarterly  statistics  on  Community  job 
vacancies, as regards seasonal adjustment procedures and quality reports (OJ L 285, 29.10.2008, p. 3). 
Commission  Regulation  (EC)  No  19/2009  of  13  January  2009  implementing  Regulation  (EC)  No 
453/2008  of  the  European  Parliament  and  of  the  Council  on  quarterly  statistics  on  Community  job 
vacancies,  as  regards  the  definition  of  job  vacancy,  the  reference  dates  for  data  collection,  data 
transmission specifications and feasibility studies (OJ L 9, 14.1.2009, p. 3). 

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supplied. The annex to  this legal  act  lists the Member States running feasibility studies  and 
the subjects these studies cover. 

Under  the  above  legislation,  all  Member  States  are  required  to  provide  time  series  for  the 
number  of  vacancies  and  number  of  occupied  posts,  starting  from  the  first  quarter  of  2010. 
They  are  to  do  so  no  more  than  70  days  after  the  end  of  the  quarter  (T+70).  In  addition, 
Member  States  with  an  overall  number  of  employees  exceeding  3%  of  the  EU  total  are 
required to send flash estimates no more than 45 days after the end of the quarter (T+45). 

Member States are  required to  provide numbers  of job  vacancies  and occupied posts for  all 
business  units  and  each  section  of  the  NACE  Revision  2  (NACE  Rev.  2)  classification  of 
economic  activities5.  However,  for  small  businesses  (defined  as  units  with  under  10 
employees)  and  NACE  Rev.  2  sections  O-S6  (where  the  main  activities  are  public 
administration,  health  services  and  education),  the  JVS  Regulation  states  that  any  Member 
States which have difficulties in providing data should conduct feasibility studies. 

Although these feasibility studies have enabled some Member States to achieve full coverage 
of the economy, this is not yet the case for four of them (Denmark, France, Italy and Malta), 
whose data are not fully comparable with those of the rest of the EU. In France and Italy, only 
business units with 10 employees or more are included in surveys, whereas public institutions 
are  not  covered  by  public  administration,  education  and  human  health  (NACE  Rev.  2, 
sections O, P and Q). In Malta, only units with 10 employees or more are included in surveys. 
Denmark only covers units within the business economy (NACE Rev. 2, sections B-N). 

2.  GENERAL PROGRESS SINCE THE LAST REPORT 

There have been no legislative changes since the adoption of the last report in 2016. 

As  regards  the  production  process,  a  number  of  improvements  have  been  made  to  the  JVS 
production chain, as detailed in the following paragraphs. 

 2.1  SDMX standards for data collection 

JVS  have  been  transmitted  by  all  Member  States  using  the  Statistical  Data  and  Metadata 
eXchange  (SDMX)7  data  structure  and  internationally  agreed  code  lists  (available  online 
through a dedicated registry8). The same coding was used in Eurostat’s JVS database and to 
transmit the EU’s JVS to the European Central Bank. 

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Regulation (EC) No 1893/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 December 2006 
establishing the statistical classification of economic activities NACE Revision 2 and amending Council 
Regulation (EEC) No 3037/90 as well as certain EC Regulations on specific statistical domains (OJ L 
393, 30.12.2006, p. 1). 
Covering: Public administration and defence, compulsory social security (section O), education (section 
P), human health and social work activities (section Q), arts, entertainments and recreation (section R) 
and  other  service  activities  such  as  activities  of  membership  organisations,  repair  of  computers  and 
personal and household goods, and other personal service activities (section S). 

7   http://sdmx.org/ (available in English only) 
8   https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/sdmxregistry/ (available in English only) 

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This  standardisation  avoids  ambiguities  and  misunderstandings  with  Member  States  and 
simplifies  the  data  validation  process,  making  it  suited  for  automation.  This  was  done  by 
using a new tool for IT validation, described in the paragraph below. 

2.2  

IT validation 

To check the structure and coding of JVS, a new IT tool (STRUVAL) has been introduced to 
simplify  the  production  process  and  reduce  the  risk  of  errors  arising  from  wrong  coding. 
When the file transmitted is not in line with the SDMX standards in force, it is automatically 
rejected, and Member States receive a success / failure notification by email. They may access 
the IT validation report through a web service. 

2.3  

Statistical validation 

In  each  quarterly  transmission,  Eurostat  makes  plausibility  checks  by  comparing  data  over 
time  and  across  NACE  Rev.  2  economic  activities.  In  the  event  of  significant  quarter-on-
quarter  changes  in  the  number  of  occupied  posts  or  job  vacancies,  Eurostat  asks  Member 
States  to  confirm  the  data  or  retransmit  a  corrected  data  file.  No  major  issues  have  been 
uncovered  by  the  plausibility  checks  carried  out  over  the  last  few  years.  However,  minor 
inconsistencies  have  been  detected  for  some  countries  between  individual  and  aggregated 
NACE Rev. 2 sections. These have been corrected.  

As regards volatility, results for Finland were somewhat above the average. Finland will look 
into whether data volatility could be reduced by increasing the sample size or improving the 
methodology used. 

Malta improved its national methodology so as to measure only the number of vacancies open 
on a reference date ('stock data'), making sure that any vacancies filled before that date are not 
recorded. 

Eurostat’s  validation  detected  some  significant  revisions  in  the  transmission  of  French 
2018Q4 data back to 2015Q4. France explained that these were the result of an improvement 
in  the  Acemo  survey’s  coverage  (Acemo:  ‘Activité  et  conditions  d’emploi  de  la  main-
d’oeuvre’), which had triggered a level shift in both occupied posts and vacancies, leaving the 
job vacancy rate broadly unchanged. 

2.4   Flag management 

Eurostat also introduced new rules on the processing of flags that signal special events such as 
breaks  in  the  series  and  specify  the  confidentiality  status  of  the  data.  Consequently,  the 
flagging of JVS is now harmonised across the EU and between national figures and European 
aggregates. 

2.5  

Seasonal adjustment 

Under  Article  1  of  Commission  Regulation  (EC)  No  1062/2008,  EU  countries  are  also 
required to transmit seasonally adjusted (SA) data. It is mandatory to supply SA data on job 
vacancies and occupied posts at least for individual/aggregated NACE Rev. 2 sections B-E, F, 
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G-I,  J,  K,  L,  M-N,  O-Q,  R-S.  Eurostat  uses  the  data  supplied  on  SA  job  vacancies  and 
occupied posts to calculate the SA job vacancy rates for each country as a ratio. 

In  December  2016,  Eurostat  started  publishing  SA  data  on  the  EU  and  the  euro  area,  in 
addition to the existing SA data on individual Member States. These figures are disseminated 
for the following aggregated sections of NACE Rev. 2: B-S, B-N, B-F and G-N. 

At the EU and euro area level,  occupied posts and job  vacancies are first  aggregated across 
Member States and then seasonally adjusted (direct seasonal adjustment). 

Eurostat has started to give SA data a higher profile by publishing European aggregates in the 
Statistics Explained article on JVS, alongside not seasonally adjusted (NSA) data. 

3.  DATA QUALITY 

This part examines all quality dimensions in European statistics on job vacancies: relevance, 
accuracy, timeliness, punctuality, coherence and comparability. 

3.1 

Relevance 

job  vacancies  are  used  by 

Collecting  JVS  is  very  relevant,  these  being  the  only  statistics  that  measure  unmet  labour 
demand.  Quarterly  data  on 
(the 
Directorate-General  for  Employment,  Social  Affairs  and  Inclusion  and  the  Directorate-
General for Economic and Financial Affairs) and the European Central Bank to monitor short-
term developments in the business cycle and the labour market. The job vacancy rate is one of 
the principal European economic indicators (PEEIs)9, the primary source of information used 
to  analyse  and  monitor  short-term  cyclical  economic  developments  within  the  EU,  the  euro 
area and individual EU countries.  

the  Commission 

JVS are also used for indicator-based structural analyses conducted as part of the Europe 2020 
strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth10. The job vacancy rate is also included in 
the employment performance monitor, a selection of key indicators in the labour market that 
are monitored in the context of the Commission’s Joint Employment Report (JER). 

However, JVS would be even more relevant if the existing gaps in the coverage of sections O-
S of NACE Rev. 2 and small businesses were filled. 

3.2 

Accuracy 

As  an  indication  of  accuracy,  Member  States  calculate  the  coefficients  of  variation  in  the 
number of job vacancies (not seasonally adjusted), taking into account the characteristics of 
their  national  sample  design.  The  coefficient  of  variation  expresses  the  standard  error  as  a 
percentage  of  the  quantity  being  estimated.  It  provides  a  measure  of  the  variability  of  the 
estimated  number  of  job  vacancies.  According  to  the  quality  reports  for  the  2017  reference 

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Communication  from  the  Commission  to  the  European  Parliament  and  the  Council  on  eurozone 
statistics, ‘Towards improved methodologies for Eurozone statistics and indicators’, COM(2002) 661. 
Communication  from  the  Commission  —  ‘EUROPE  2020  —  a  strategy  for  smart,  sustainable  and 
inclusive growth’, COM(2010) 2020. 

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year,  the  coefficients  of  variation  for  total  job  vacancies  were  below  15%  in  all  Member 
States but Cyprus and Greece 11.  

The sample size and response rate significantly affect the accuracy of estimates. According to 
the  quality  reports,  the  sample  size  varied  from  around  2 324  businesses  in  Malta,  3 200  in 
Cyprus, 7 451 in Greece up to around 85 000 in Germany12 and 100 000 in Poland. 

The  response  rate  varied  from  14%  in  Germany13  (for  the  postal  survey  conducted  in  the 
fourth quarter), between 55% and 62% for Greece (depending on the quarters) up to 85% or 
more in Cyprus and 99% in Romania. 

In terms of revisions, the situation differs for the two releases of the job vacancy rate, i.e. the 
flash  and  the  final  estimates.  The  flash  estimates,  which  are  released  in  Eurobase  at  T+50 
days,  may  be  revised  at  T+78  days,  when  the  news  release  with  the  final  estimates  is 
published.  Although  the  flash  data  did  not  cover  all  the  Member  States,  revisions  did  not 
exceed 0.1 percentage points for the euro area and the EU.  

As regards final estimates published at T+78 days, revisions can be measured by comparing 
the first  and second transmission of JVS  for a given quarter.  For the  euro area and the EU, 
revisions  in  the  job  vacancy  rate  never  exceeded  0.1  percentage  points  over  the  reference 
period of this report. 

3.3 

Timeliness and punctuality 

The  timeliness  of  JVS  transmissions  was  generally  satisfactory  as  regards  both  the  flash 
estimate  and  the  final  publication.  Although  minor  delays  were  recorded  occasionally  for 
some  countries,  there  were  no  structurally  late  deliveries  that  could  impair  the  timely 
publication  of  the  JVS  release.  Member  States  have  been  reminded  regularly  of  the 
importance  of  meeting  the  mandatory  deadlines  for  transmitting  PEEI  data,  including  job 
vacancy statistics. 

3.4 

Coherence and comparability 

It  is  not  possible  to  check  directly  the  extent  to  which  job  vacancies  are  measured  in  a 
consistent  fashion,  as  there  is  no  other  harmonised  source  used  at  European  level  that 
measures unmet demand on the labour market.  While many Member States count vacancies 
reported  to  public  employment  services,  it  is  problematic  to  use  these  figures  to  check 
whether  the  JVS  are  measured  in  a  consistent  way.  This  is  because  they  suffer  from  heavy 
undercoverage  and/or  double  counting  if  the  administrative  register  is  not  updated  to  take 
account of filled vacancies. Moreover, JVS from administrative sources are based on national 
definitions, which differ from one country to another. 

11 
12  

See the JVS metadata: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/metadata/en/jvs_esms.htm 
This corresponds to the sample size of each fourth quarter when a full postal survey is conducted. The 
other three quarters are surveyed by following up all the respondents who completed the postal survey. 
13 The job vacancy survey is not mandatory in Germany, which explains the low rate of response to the postal 
survey run every fourth quarter of the year. The results from this survey are re-weighted using administrative 
data, through Generalised REGression estimation (GREG), to correct for any bias due to non-response. 

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The number of occupied posts, a variable which is part of the denominator of the job vacancy 
rate,  can  be  compared  with  information  from  other  sources,  in  particular  the  number  of 
employees  reported  in  the  Labour  Force  Survey  (LFS).  Comparisons  and  subsequent 
assessments  of  differences  must  nevertheless  take  account  of  conceptual  and  survey-related 
differences between sources. 

The  difference  between  the  number  of  employees  recorded  in  the  LFS  and  the  number  of 
occupied  posts  recorded  in  JVS  for  the  whole  economy  generally  fluctuates  between  -20% 
and +20%. Luxembourg, Bulgaria, Greece, Portugal, Hungary and Romania are exceptions.  

Hungary  does  not  cover  businesses  with  fewer  than  five  employees  in  its  JVS,  but  imputes 
them based on the data collected for businesses with 5-9 employees; this may explain part of 
the gap recorded. 

The  negative  gap  measured  for  Luxembourg  can  be  explained  by  the  large  proportion  of 
cross-border  work,  which  creates  large  discrepancies  between  the  domestic  concept  of  the 
labour market used in the LFS and the national one applied in JVS; the LFS surveys resident 
households  only,  whereas  JVS  cover  resident  enterprises,  including  their  non-resident  (i.e. 
cross-border) workers.  

Bulgaria’s  quality  report  stated  that  the  definition  of  employees  used  in  the  LFS  is  broader 
than  for  JVS  statistics,  encompassing  people  working  under  a  civil  contract  (contract  for 
certain work to be done), those working under management and control contracts, and those 
working without a contract of any kind. Moreover, JVS do not include military personnel. 

Romania  explained  in  its  quality  report  that  discrepancies  between  the  LFS  and  JVS  as 
regards  the  number  of  occupied  posts  reflected  the  fact  that  occupied  posts  collected  using 
JVS methods did not include the following: 

 

individuals  whose  employment  contract  is  suspended  for  a  given  period  (on  the 
grounds of maternity leave, childcare leave, sick leave or unpaid leave, or because of 
some other type of absence); 

  posts  which,  though  temporarily  suspended,  might  fall  vacant  and  be  occupied  for  a 

limited period of time; 

  posts in armed forces or in the informal sector. 

Portugal  and  Greece  provided  some  general  explanations,  pointing  out  the  differences 
between the two sources as regards methodology and definitions.  

Together with  the competent national  authorities of the countries listed above, Eurostat will 
monitor discrepancies between the number of employees recorded by the LFS and the number 
of occupied posts recorded in JVS. 

It is also important that vacancies and posts on the payroll of temporary agencies are covered 
and assigned to section N of NACE Rev. 2. 

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Finally,  the  main  challenge  as  regards  comparability  is  for  all  Member  States  to  cover  the 
entire economy in their job vacancy surveys, i.e. to include small businesses and NACE Rev.2 
sections  O-S.  As  noted  in  sections  2.2  and  2.3  above,  four  Member  States  continue  to  fall 
short of this objective. 

3.5 

Accessibility and clarity 

Job  vacancy  statistics  are  disseminated  through  Eurostat’s  standard  distribution  channels, 
namely  the  online  database  and  the  'Statistics  Explained'  pages  on  Eurostat's  website14.  The 
website provides timely information on the job vacancy rate for both the European aggregates 
and individual Member States, including charts on developments over time. 

Metadata  supplied  to  users  in  support  of  data  releases  have  been  updated  using  the  annual 
quality reports provided by Member States. 

4.  CONCLUSIONS 

Over the past three years, much has been done to improve the validation and dissemination of 
European  statistics  on  job  vacancies.  Moreover,  Eurostat  has  started  publishing  seasonally 
adjusted data for European aggregates, which are covered by a ‘Statistics Explained’ article. 

The  complete  re-engineering  of  IT  programmes  made  it  possible  to  align  them  on  SMDX 
standards, to  improve the  IT and statistical  reliability of the production  chain  and to  handle 
confidentiality flags better. The validation of JVS has also benefited from enhanced validation 
reports  that  do  a  better  job  of  highlighting  sizeable  revisions  between  two  successive 
transmissions. 

JVS  have  been  supplied  in  good  time  and  European  aggregates  have  been  published  as 
scheduled. In general, only very light revision has been needed for the European aggregates 
published in both the flash and final estimates. 

The  Member  States’  quality  reports  have  been  processed  using  the  latest  version  of  the 
European statistical system metadata handler and made available to all users. 

Nevertheless, incomplete coverage is still the main reason why JVS are not used more widely. 
It  is crucial for all Member States to  fully  cover the public sector  (in the case of  Denmark, 
France  and  Italy)  and  small  businesses  (in  the  case  of  France,  Italy  and  Malta).  Improved 
coverage  would  also  make  it  possible  to  publish  the  number  of  vacancies,  for  European 
aggregates,  in  addition  to  the  job  vacancy  rate.  Eurostat  plans  to  address  this  issue  in  close 
cooperation with the countries concerned, under the next review of EU legislation on labour 
market statistics collected from businesses. 

14  See 

the 

articles 
explained/index.php/Job_vacancy_statistics 
explained/index.php/Job_vacancy_and_unemployment_rates_-_Beveridge_curve (in English only). 

http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-

website: 
and 

Eurostat’s 

on 

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The  Commission  will  continue  to  monitor  compliance  and  data  quality  at  regular  intervals, 
using  the  data  delivered  and  other  national  documentation,  including  quality  reports,  and 
follow this up closely with the competent national statistical authorities. 

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