COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT pursuant to Article 294(6) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union concerning the position of the Council on the adoption of a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on European Union 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: 2025-03-25
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, 25.3.2025  COM(2025) 134 final 2023/0288 (COD)    COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT  pursuant to Article 294(6) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union  concerning the position of the Council on the adoption of a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on European Union 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 (Text with EEA relevance)  
 
 
COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION 
TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT 

pursuant to Article 294(6) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union 

concerning the 

position of the Council on the adoption of a Regulation of the European Parliament and 
of the Council on European Union 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 

(Text with EEA relevance) 

1. 

BACKGROUND 

Date of transmission of the proposal to the European Parliament and 
to  the  Council  (document  COM(2023)  459  final  –  2023/0288 
COD): 

28 July 2023 

Date  of  the  opinion  of  the  European  Economic  and  Social 
Committee: 

NA 

Date of the position of the European Parliament, first reading: 

24 April 2024 

Date of transmission of the amended proposal: 

Date of adoption of the position of the Council: 

21 October 2024 

24 March 2025 

2. 

OBJECTIVE OF THE PROPOSAL FROM THE COMMISSION 

The  proposal  aims  to  modernise  the  existing  legal  framework  for  European  labour  market 
statistics on businesses. Its key objectives are to adapt the regulatory framework to allow for 
more flexibility in meeting emerging data needs, improve timeliness and extend the coverage 
of statistics to the whole economy, promote the use of innovative data sources and methods 
and ensure that gender pay gap data are provided by all Members States.  

These  objectives  will  be  delivered  by  the  following  key  elements  in  the  proposal:  i) the 
Commission is empowered by means of delegated and implementing acts to modify the list of 
detailed topics and the characteristics of the data provision as well as to define ad hoc data; 
ii) the coverage of data collections on the structure of earnings and labour costs are extended 
to  the  section  ‘Public  administration  and  defence;  compulsory  social  security’  of  the 
Statistical  Classification  of  Economic  Activities  (NACE)  and  on  job  vacancy  statistics  to 
cover the whole economy in all countries (micro businesses are however exempted from data 
collections  on  the  structure  of  labour  costs  to  limit  the  reporting  burden  on  them);  iii) 

 
 
 
 
timeliness  is  improved  for  the  quarterly  labour  cost  index  and  for  the  4-yearly  structure  of 
earnings data and early flash estimates of labour costs index are introduced. Introduction of 
a mandatory data collection on the gender pay gap is also an element of the proposal. 

3. 

COMMENTS ON THE POSITION OF THE COUNCIL 

The position of the Council as adopted at first reading fully reflects the political agreement 
reached  between  the  European  Parliament  and  the  Council  on  12  December  2024. 
The Commission  accepts  the  overall  agreement.  The  main  points  of  this  agreement  are 
the following: 

The  revised  Regulation  (EC)  No  223/2009  on  European  statistics,  specifically Article  17c, 
mandates that sectoral legislation define the categories of personal data that can be obtained 
from  private  data  holders.  To  facilitate  access  to  personal  data  for  labour  market  statistics 
purposes,  an  additional  provision  has  been  incorporated  into  Article  3,  "Sources  and 
methods". 

Principle-based  safeguards  have  been  added  in  relation  to  the  delegated  and  implementing 
acts  of Article  4. These  safeguards  emphasize  the  importance  of  minimizing  the  burden  on 
respondents  and  conducting  EU-financed  feasibility  or  pilot  studies  before  proposing  any 
delegated  or  implementing  acts. The  periodicity,  the  reference  periods  and  the  transmission 
deadlines  of  detailed  topics  already  included  in  the  Annex  will  not  be  amended  via  a 
delegated act. Delegated acts may set the above-mentioned parameters only for new detailed 
topics.  

The  agreement  replaces  the  provisions  of  the  Commission  proposal  on  ad  hoc  data 
requirements with new rules on temporary data production. Limitations have been introduced 
on the frequency, introduction year, and duration of data provision. 

The duration of possible derogations from the Regulation and its implementing and delegated 
acts was tied to the periodicity of data collection. A four-year derogation will apply to multi-
annual  data  collections,  a  two-year  derogation  to  annual  periodicities  while  a  one-year 
derogation  will  apply  to  quarterly  data  collections.  In  justified  cases,  the  Commission  may 
grant a further derogation of one more year independently from the periodicity. 

Due to the fact that this Regulation will be adopted later than initially foreseen, a number of 
first reference periods were changed from 2026 to 2027. 

The  quarterly  indexes  of  total  labour  cost  and  of  hours  worked  will  be  provided  on 
a voluntary basis. 

Neither  the  amendments  of  the  Parliament  nor  the  ones  of  the  Council  introduce  potential 
additional burden on administrations or businesses. The safeguards proposed by the Council 
explicitly  aim  at  avoiding  significant  additional  cost  or  burden  on  the  Member  States  or 
respondents. 

The Commission recalls that availability of funding is a strict requirement under the Financial 

 
 
Regulation and that the agreement does not prejudge the future Commission proposal on the 
next Multiannual Financial Framework.  

4. 

CONCLUSION 

The Commission  accepts  the results of the inter-institutional  negotiations and  can therefore 
accept the Council's position at first reading.