Statistical presentation

Data description

Labour costs for enterprises and organizations are published for nine main industry classes and nine occupations. Labour costs consist of the employee's total earnings combined with other labour costs. Total earnings refer to the employee’s overall income in connection with employment, while other labour costs are the expenses that do not constitute earnings for the employee, such as contributions to public funds, education costs, and other voluntary employee-related costs.

Total labour costs cover all expenses associated with employing a given person per hour worked. Total labour costs are calculated as the sum of total earnings and other labour costs, both related to hours worked.

Total earnings cover the employee's income from employment, including base earnings (such as vacation and holiday pay), pension contributions, irregular payments, employee benefits, additional pay for special working conditions, sick leave payments, and overtime pay.

Base Earnings include the regular salary, as well as vacation and holiday pay.

Pension Contributions cover contributions from both employees and employers, excluding non-employer-administered pension schemes.

Irregular Payments include bonuses, profit sharing, and other retrospective pay adjustments.

Employee Benefits include only taxable benefits such as use of a company car, meals, accommodation, and employer-paid health insurance.

Additional Pay includes shift allowances or other supplements not related to overtime.

Sick Leave Payments include employer-covered payments for sick leave, parental leave, accidents, and other absences. This also includes cases where the employer later receives reimbursement from the public.

Overtime Pay is compensation for work performed beyond normal working hours, including both extra hours and additional shifts.

Hours worked refer only to the actual hours worked, excluding paid absences, holidays, and other paid leave. Thus, only paid hours minus absences are included in the hours worked.

Earnings per hour worked shows the average hourly cost of employing an individual, indicating both the employee's earnings per hour and the employer’s hourly wage costs.

Other labour costs are those costs incurred by the enterprise that do not count as income for the employee, such as contributions to public funds, other compulsory costs, agreed-upon contributions, education expenses, and other employee-related expenses.

Contributions to Public Funds include contributions to Employers' Refunds for Apprentices (AER), sick pay insurance, payroll taxes, financing contributions, public schemes such as flexjob, and the public parental fund, typically affecting non-VAT industries.

Public Reimbursements cover AER refunds, wage subsidies, education reimbursements, and payroll refunds due to sick leave or parental leave.

Other Compulsory Costs include employer contributions to work injury insurance, occupational disease insurance (AES), and maternity funds. Other items include reimbursement for unemployment benefits due to redundancies.

Agreement-Based Contributions cover employer contributions to various funds, group life insurance, and other contractually agreed benefits.

Education Costs include expenses related to external and internal training, as well as fees for external educators.

Other Employee-Related Costs cover employer expenses such as liability insurance, voluntary employee insurance, company pension schemes, recruitment costs, and termination payments. Additional items include costs for employee-related activities, such as private job training, work attire, personal care, non-taxable benefits, and canteen services.

The data are collected based on a sample survey of enterprises with more than nine full-time employees, including apprentices and employees under 18. Employees in agricultural and fisheries enterprises are excluded. Data on earnings are derived from the annual earnings structure for the private sector, while other labour costs are based on a specific sample survey.

Classification system

The class of industry used for the statistics are based on the Danish Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities 2007 (DB07), while group of occupation follow the DISCO-08 classification.

• Industry: Information on the industry of the business enterprise is obtained from the Central Business Register. Employees are classified according to the Danish Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities 2007, which is based on the common European nomenclature of industries NACE rev.2. Before 2008 the Danish Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities 2003 was used, which was based on the common European nomenclature of industries NACE rev.1.1.
• Occupation: The information on occupation is obtained from the structure of earnings. On the basis of the DISCO-08 then employees are distributed by occupation. The occupation of an employee is indicative of the clearly defined tasks and duties involved in an employee's job. The classification of occupations is based on DISCO-08 as from the year 2010, which is the official Danish version of the international classification of occupations called "The International Standard Classification of Occupation, ISCO 08, which is prepared by the International Organisation, ILO. The classification is also applied in the context of the EU. DISCO-08 is a revised version of the previously used classification DISCO-earnings. DISCO-08 is used for the first in the structural statistics on earnings in 2010. For further information about the classification and the specific changes incorporated into the revised version of the classification can be seen at: https://www.dst.dk/disco. There is no homogeneous conversion key between DISCO-earnings and DISCO-08. Consequently, total labour costs distributed by occupations are not comparable backwards in time.

Sector coverage

The statistics cover corporations and organizations, but not employees in the economic activities agriculture or fisheries.

Statistical concepts and definitions

Total labour costs: Costs of a business enterprise that are involved in employing one person, for each hour the person is on his/her job. Total labour costs include total earnings and other labour costs total, both items are related to the number of hours worked.

Other labour costs: Costs that are not considered to be an income for an employee. Other labour costs are broken down by the following items: contributions to public funds, other compulsory costs, contributions according to agreement, education costs and other staff costs.

Statistical unit

The statistical unit is the individual job, which is defined as a person employed with a specific employer and engaged in a specific occupation.

Statistical population

The statistical population is all persons employed in companies or organisations with ten or more employees, but not within the economic activities agriculture or fisheries. Labour costs for the private sector are based on the annual structure of earnings statistics and the survey of other labour costs of the private sector, which is also annual. For more information on the annual structure of earnings statistics see its documentation of statistics.

The survey on other labour costs for enterprises in the private sector is based on a special sample of enterprises with 10 or more employees, and the sample is drawn with the use of the Danish Business Register. The sample is stratified to cover enterprises in different size groups (number of employees) and class of industry.

Reference area

Denmark, excl. the Faroe Islands and Greenland.

Time coverage

The current time series covers the period from 2014-.

Base period

Not relevant for these statistics.

Unit of measure

The counting unit is kr. (Danish kroner) per hour worked.

Reference period

01-01-2023 - 31-12-2023

Frequency of dissemination

The statistics are published annually.

Legal acts and other agreements

Information is collected in accordance with the Act on Statistics Denmark §8.

Council Regulation (EC) No. 530/1999 Statistics on Wages and Labour Cost Structures forms the legal basis for the survey. To this is added that annual updates of the survey are submitted in accordance with the so-called gentlemen's agreement.

Cost and burden

Data on other labour costs are reported via questionnaires, which are submitted and collected through one of the above organisations. In order to reduce the response burden, data on other labour costs are collected from a sample. Please see the documentation of statistics "Structure of earnings" with respect to the survey of earnings.

Comment

Other information is available at the subject page on (Labour costs)(https://www.dst.dk/da/Statistik/emner/erhvervsliv/erhvervslivets-oekonomi/virksomheders-arbejdsomkostninger.aspx) and Statistics on Earnings and Labour costs.