COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF THE IMPACT ASSESSMENT REPORT Accompanying the document Proposal for a REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL on European labour market statistics on businesses, repealing Council Regulation (EC) No 530/1999 and Regulations (EC) No 450/2003 and (EC) No 453/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council
Date: 2023-07-28
Institutions: European Commission, Eurostat
Subjects: EU employment policy, EU statistics, data collection, economic statistics, employment statistics, exchange of information, labour force, pay, statistical method, type of business

EN 

  EN 

   EUROPEAN COMMISSION  Brussels, 28.7.2023  SWD(2023) 266 final  COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT  EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF THE IMPACT ASSESSMENT REPORT  Accompanying the document Proposal for a  REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL     on European labour market statistics on businesses, repealing Council Regulation (EC) No 530/1999 and Regulations (EC) No 450/2003 and (EC) No 453/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council {COM(2023) 459 final} - {SEC(2023) 295 final} - {SWD(2023) 265 final}  
 
 
Introduction and background 

Eurostat,  the  statistical  office  of  the  European  Union  (EU),  ensures  the  production  of  high-
quality  comparable  European  statistics  according  to  the  statistical  principles  set  out  in 
Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics. The main uses of European statistics are 
to  serve  EU  policy  design,  implementation  and  monitoring,  and  their  main  users  are  EU 
institutions, researchers, national authorities and the public. The European Statistical System 
is the partnership between Eurostat and the national statistical institutes (NSIs) that works as 
a network.  Eurostat’s  role  is  to  lead  the  way  in  the  harmonisation  of  statistics  in  close 
cooperation with national statistical authorities, which collect data and compile statistics for 
national and EU purposes. 

To set out and implement policies and activities benefiting the EU population in areas of EU 
competence,  as  laid  down  in  Articles  2  and  3  of  the  Treaty  on  the  Functioning  of  the 
European  Union  (TFEU),  EU  institutions  need  complete,  timely,  reliable,  detailed, 
harmonised  and  comparable  European  statistics.  In  particular,  labour  market  statistics  on 
businesses are an important source of information for policymaking and monitoring. 

European  labour  market  statistics  on  businesses  (LMB)  are  official  statistics  that  describe 
businesses function in relation to labour markets. For instance, it can show if there are vacant 
posts  in  companies  (labour  demand),  how  many  vacant  posts  there  are  compared  to  those 
already occupied and how the posts differ depending on the type of economic activity of an 
enterprise.  Moreover,  LMB  provide  information  on  the  costs  borne  by  employers  for 
employing  staff  (labour  costs),  how  those  costs  are  structured  (e.g.  what  are  the  wages  and 
other  costs)  and  how  they  differ  depending  on  the  region  or  economic  activity.  They  also 
include data on individual wages for a representative sample of employees, together with their 
characteristics  (e.g.  age,  sex,  occupation,  educational  attainment  level)  as  well  as  those  of 
their  employers  (economic  activity,  size  class  etc.).  For  employers,  wages  are  a  significant 
part  of  production  costs  and  determine  to  some  extent  their  cost  competitiveness.  For  most 
employees,  wages  make  up  the  main  part  of  their  income  and  contribute  to  their  economic 
welfare. 

LMB cover the following data collections: 

 
 

 

 

 

job vacancy statistics, which record the number of occupied and vacant posts; 
labour cost survey on the level and composition of labour costs borne by enterprises 
for employing labour; 
the  labour  cost  index,  which  captures  changes  in  the  hourly  labour  costs  borne  by 
enterprises for employing labour; 
the  structure  of  earnings  survey  on  earnings  paid  to  individual  employees  and 
information about their socio-economical characteristics; 
the gender pay gap, which measures the relative difference between the average gross 
hourly  earnings  of  male  and  female  employees  and  uses  the  structure  of  earnings 
survey as a primary source. 

The legal acts governing LMB are: 

o  Council  Regulation  (EC)  No 530/1999  of  9 March  1999  concerning  structural 

statistics on earnings and labour costs (OJ L 63, 12.3.1999, p. 6); 

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o  Regulation  (EC)  No 450/2003  of  the  European  Parliament  and  of  the  Council  of 

27 February 2003 concerning the labour cost index (OJ L 69, 13.3.2003, p. 1); 

o  Regulation  (EC)  No 453/2008  of  the  European  Parliament  and  of  the  Council  of 
23 April  2008  on  quarterly  statistics  on  Community  job  vacancies  (OJ  L  145, 
4.6.2008, p. 234). 

Problem definition 

The  evaluation  concluded  that  the  set  of  legislation  on  LMB  allowed  for  collecting  high-
quality information, which is widely used for the intended purpose, and that Members States 
improved  their  compliance  with  the  legislation  over  time.  The  strengths  of  the  LMB  lie  in 
their  well-established  reputation  as  a  source  of  coherent,  efficient,  comparable  and  accurate 
information, which are widely used by organisations and policymakers at all levels. Over the 
past 10 to 20 years, the importance of LMB has grown apace with policy developments in the 
areas of equality, working conditions and the monitoring of the monetary union. Comparable 
data at EU level for these policies is essential and provides clear value added. 

However, the evaluation has also highlighted some weaknesses in the adaptation of LMB to 
new needs, sources and methods. The first problem with the existing legal framework is that 
LMB do not address new needs, sources and methods. The legal framework does not reflect 
the latest user needs and is not flexible enough to address those that will emerge in the future. 
Users are seeking timelier data, through more frequent data collection and releases (depending 
on the type of LMB) and/or shorter deadlines for transmission and dissemination.  The LMB 
regulations did not envisage the use of innovative data sources as they were not available at 
that time; therefore, statistical quality reporting is not adjusted to assess the quality of those 
sources  that  could  be  used  today.  Another  emerging  trend  is  the  use  of  administrative  data. 
Member  States  are  making  more  use  of  this  source,  which  enables  more  frequent  data 
collection (e.g. quarterly) with a lower burden on businesses. However, the quality reporting 
framework in the current LMB legislation is not suitable for this type of data. 

Second, LMB do not capture significant actors of the EU economy, such as micro firms. This 
shortcoming  was  already  identified  when  the  legal  acts  were  adopted.  It  was  addressed 
differently (by requiring feasibility studies that lead to an amendment of the legislation or by 
providing financial support for creating the capabilities needed) but not sufficiently resolved 
in  the  case  of  some  data  collections.  Therefore,  the  information  collected  is  biased  in  some 
LMB, in particular due to the incomplete coverage of some sectors of the economy or types of 
enterprises.  This situation also  varies depending  on the data  collection and developments  in 
the different countries. As a result, the data provided to Eurostat cannot be used to their full 
potential  (e.g.  EU  aggregates  cannot  be  calculated  for  the  whole  economy,  and  country 
comparisons  are  hampered,  for  the  structure  of  earnings  survey  for  example,  as  not  all 
countries extended their data collection to micro-enterprises). The lack of a legal obligation to 
provide information on the annual gender pay gap also became problematic after this indicator 
was  included  in  the  monitoring  of  the  European  Pillar  of  Social  Rights,  goal  5  ‘Gender 
Equality’ of the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the gender equality strategy. Some 
Member States have not provided any annual gender pay gap data. 

Third,  LMB  could  be  made more consistent  by  simplifying the legal  architecture (replacing 
the  three  framework  regulations  currently  in  force  with  one consolidated  text).  This  unified 
legal framework would benefit from systematic references to the corresponding concepts used 
in  closely  related  domains,  such  as  the  national  accounts  and  European  business  statistics. 
Since the adoption of the LMB legislation, the legislation in both domains has been updated 
and their methodology  has  been  revised (European  system  of  accounts  2010,  Regulation on 

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European  business  statistics  adopted  in  2019).  Therefore,  it  is  necessary  to  align  LMB  to 
bring  consistency  across  domains  and  provide  clarity  to  the  users  of  LMB  legislation, 
including the statistical offices of the Member States. 

The evaluation has identified that these problems will persist and may worsen in the future if 
not legislative action is taken. 

Objectives 

The general objective of the action is to produce labour market and business statistics that are 
up to date, relevant,  comprehensive in coverage of important  economic  sectors,  comparable 
across  Member  States  and  consistent  with  related  statistical  domains.  This  can  be  broken 
down into three specific objectives aligned to the problems outlined above: 

  adapt  the  regulatory  framework  to  allow  for  flexibility  in  meeting  emerging  needs, 
publish more timely statistics, and promote the use of innovative sources and methods 
(whose quality has been duly assessed); 

  extend the coverage of statistics to the whole economy and ensure exhaustive gender 

pay gap data; 
improve the consistency with related statistical domains. 

 

Policy options and their impacts 

To  develop  policy  options,  Eurostat  drew  up  an  exhaustive  list  of  all  possible  measures 
identified  during  the  preparatory  work  with  the  national  statistical  institutes,  a  public 
consultation  and  stakeholder  consultation  for  each  data  collection.  The  measures  were  then 
bundled into regulatory frameworks or policy options. 

Table  1  shows  the  resulting  options,  which  are  ranked  by  an  increasing  level  of  ambition. 
Option 0  is  the  baseline  scenario.  In  option  1,  the  data  collections  specified  in  the  three 
existing regulations are integrated under a  new single framework regulation that also covers 
the gender pay gap. Definitions, concepts and approaches are aligned, and an overall planning 
is  set  up  to  better  synchronise  data  transmissions.  There  are  strong  methodological  links 
between: (i) the structure of earnings survey and the gender pay gap; and (ii) the labour cost 
survey  and  the  labour  cost  index.  However,  option  1  does  not  address  emerging  needs,  the 
timeliness  of  data  collections  or  their  coverage  to  the  extent  that  these  should  be  addressed 
voluntarily in this option.  

In option 2, the coverage is extended to micro businesses for the structure of earnings survey 
(main information); the labour cost survey is not extended to those enterprises. The scope of 
both  those  surveys  is  extended  to  the  NACE  section  ‘Public  administration  and  defence; 
compulsory social security’, and job vacancy statistics cover the whole economy. Timeliness 
is improved for the labour cost index; it is slightly improved (by 2 months) for the structure of 
earnings survey; there is no improvement in the timeliness of the survey on labour costs. The 
frequency of both surveys stays as it is in the baseline. Developing a legal basis for the gender 
pay gap and covering emerging needs is also part of this option. This option ensures improved 
quality  reporting  for  all  data  collections  and  better  harmonisation  and  planning  via  the 
integrated framework regulation.  

Finally,  option 3  exhaustively  tackles  the  needs  for  improvement  and  harmonisation  of  all 
LMB as expressed by stakeholders. It includes all identified policy measures. These measures 
are related to coverage, timeliness and high frequency of surveys on the structure of earnings 
and  labour  costs,  quality  reporting  and  use  of  administrative  data  and  innovative  sources, 
alignment  of  concepts  across  LMB  domains,  making  gender  pay  gap  data  collection 
compulsory  and  covering  emerging  needs.  That  means  that  the  coverage  of  both  surveys  is 

3 

 
extended  to  micro  firms  and  to  the  NACE  section  ‘Public  administration  and  defence; 
compulsory  social  security’,  and  job  vacancy  statistics  cover  the  whole  economy.  The 
timeliness  of  the  structure  of  earnings  survey  shows  a  significant  improvement,  while  the 
labour  cost  survey  shows  a  moderate  improvement.  In  this  option,  LMB  benefits  from 
improved  quality  reporting  and  better  harmonisation  and  planning  through  one  integrated 
framework regulation. 

Table 1:   Options 0 (baseline), 1, 2 and 3 under a new single framework regulation – 

main features and differences 

Cluster of measures 

Option 0 
(baseline) 

Gender pay gap 
(annual data 
collection) 
Coverage 

No 

No 

Voluntary 

Option 1 

Option 2 

Option 3 

Compulsory 

Full implementation 

Full implementation 

Micro-enterprises in the 
structure of earnings 
survey (main information 
only). 
Public sector covered in 
both surveys (structure of 
earnings and labour costs). 
Full coverage of job 
vacancy statistics. 
Timeliness improved to 
some extent (significant 
improvement to the labour 
cost index and moderate 
improvement to the 
structure of earnings 
survey). 
No increase in the 
frequency of surveys. 
Full implementation 

Micro-enterprises in both 
surveys – structure of 
earnings and labour costs 
(complete information). 
Public sector covered in 
both surveys (structure of 
earnings and labour costs). 
Full coverage of job 
vacancy statistics. 
Timeliness improved for 
the labour cost index and 
for structure of earnings and 
labour cost surveys. 

The frequency of both 
surveys is doubled. 

Full implementation 

Yes  

Yes 

Timeliness and 
frequency 

No 

Voluntary 
(timeliness 
only) 

Quality reporting, use 
of administrative data 
and innovative sources 

No 

Emerging needs 

No 

Voluntary  
(but 
compulsory 
for the 
gender pay 
gap) 
Voluntary 

Comparison of options and the preferred option 

A  qualitative  assessment  of  the  four  options  selected  for  the  impact  assessment  was  carried 
out.  It  assessed  proportionality,  followed  by  effectiveness,  efficiency  and  coherence. 
A summary of this assessment is presented in Table 2. 

In terms of costs, option 3 creates a significant increase in the burden on businesses and this 
leads  to  an 88%  increase  in  their  costs  for  answering  surveys.  Option  2  results  in  an  11% 
increase in the burden on businesses. In option 3, the costs for data compilers increase by 64% 
against 12% in option 2. Option 1 creates a negligible increase in the burden on and costs for 
businesses and national statistical institutes. 

4 

 
 
 
 
Increase in costs 
for NSIs (in EUR) 

% increase in 
total costs for  
NSIs 

Increase in costs 
for businesses (in 
EUR) 

% increase in 
total costs for 
businesses  

Option 1 

Option 2 

Option 3 

215 000 

3 700 000 

19 300 000 

1% 

12% 

64% 

Option 1 

Option 2 

Option 3 

92 000 

4 700 000 

38 000 000 

0.2% 

11% 

88% 

All the options ensure proportionality. Option 2 was identified as addressing the needs of data 
users  and  providers  in  the  most  cost-efficient  way.  Although  data  users  would  like  to  see  a 
more ambitious proposal such as option 3, it would be difficult to reach an agreement on that 
option given its impact on the burden on businesses. 

Table 2:   How the options compare 

Assessment 

Does the option go beyond what is necessary to 
satisfactorily achieve the objectives? 
Is the scope of the option limited to aspects that Member 
States cannot achieve satisfactorily on their own and that 
the EU can do better? 
Are costs for the EU, national governments, regional and 
local authorities, businesses and the public commensurate 
with the initiative’s objectives? 
Is the type of action (choice of instrument) as simple as 
possible and consistent with a satisfactory achievement of 
the objective and effective enforcement? 
Strategic objective (SO) 1.1: Adapting the regulatory 
framework to allow flexibility in meeting emerging needs 
SO 1.2: Release more timely statistics 
SO 1.3: Promote the use of innovative sources and methods 
(whose quality has been duly assessed) 
SO 2: Improve the coverage of statistics to the whole 
economy and ensure exhaustive gender pay gap data  
SO 3: Improve the consistency with related statistical 
domains  
Impact on fundamental rights, including the promotion of 
equality 
Social impact 
UN Sustainable Development Goals 
Coherence 

Score 
Option 1 Option 2  Option 3 
Pass 

Pass 

Pass 

Pass 

Pass 

Pass 

Pass 

Pass  Uncertain 

Pass 

Pass 

Pass 

+ 

+ 
+ 

+ 

+ 

+ 

+ 
0 
- 

++ 

+ 
++ 

+ 

++ 

+ 

++ 
+ 
+ 

++ 

++ 
++ 

++ 

++ 

++ 

++ 
++ 
+ 

Consistency with the 
proportionality 
principle 
(pass/uncertain/fail) 

Effectiveness (-- to 
++) 

Coherence with 
overarching objectives 
of EU policy (-- to ++) 

Efficiency (-- to ++)  Efficiency 

0 

++ 

+ 

Monitoring and evaluation 
The  performance  of  the  new  LMB  framework  will  be  monitored  and  evaluated  using  the 
operational objectives set under each of the specific objectives. To achieve this, 20 monitoring 
indicators  and  provisional  targets  have  been  drawn  up.  A  first  evaluation  concluding  the 
implementation phase is planned within 3 to 5 years after the entry into force of the new legal 
framework.  After  transition  to  the  application  phase,  the  functioning  and  impact  of  the 
legislation will be evaluated regularly every 3 to 5 years. 

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