Comparability

Comparability - geographical

The Danish Working Time Accounts are worked out according to international guidelines, European System of Accounts (ESA 2010) and International Labour Organisation (1988: Current International Recommendations on Labour Statistics), the latest of which is reviewed in 2013 (Resolution concerning statistics of work, employment and labour underutilization, 19th International Conference of Labour Statisticians).

The population of the WTA are persons affiliated to Danish registered companies, which is consistent with ESA2010 boundaries. ESA2010 includes working in resident companies (see ESA 2010 paragraphs 2.04 to 2.11) (colloquially called 'the daytime population'). ILO / ICLS guidelines include the resident population (colloquially called 'the nighttime population').

Since the WTA is primarily a register-based statistics it does not include information about unpaid overtime, undeclared work and criminal work.

We work in Statistics Denmark on exploiting information from Register of foreign services in Denmark (Register over Udenlandske Tjenesteydelser i Danmark, RUT) to create a better illumination of border work. RUT included hiring out labour, corporate transferees and sole proprietorships that provide services in Denmark, but not taxable in Denmark. RUT-employment is not a part of the nighttime population (typically used for population delineation of social statistics, including labour market statistics), since workers do not reside in Denmark. The national accounts is about to disentangle, whether RUT employment relationships should be included in national accounts employment (in terms of the activities are conducted in Denmark and thus should be included in the daytime population) or whether they should be categorized as "import of foreign services" (as they are engaged are employed by - and receives salary, from - the foreign company). The part of the RUT employment to be included in the national accounts daytime population, will also be included also in the Working Time Accounts employment.

Comparability over time

The compilation of Working Time Accounts is based on the idea that the figures are comparable over time to the highest possible degree. The sources will continuously be improved and replaced by other sources if these have proved to be more accurate. New sources will always be adapted to the concepts of the Working Time Accounts System. This implies that adjustments of existing sources cannot immediately be seen as changes of variables and concepts in the Working Time Accounts Statistics, although adjustments of the level of the specific variable may be made according to the new and improved information.

Basically there was a major break in the Working Time Accounts end of 2012 in connection with the transition to e-Income-based sources with data as from 2008, see se Break in WTA on transition to eIncome.

Furthermore, there were breaks in the WTA as a result of revisions to the classifications of sectors and industries, see [Break in WTA due to changed classifications since 2008]https://www.dst.dk/ext/arbe/WTAbreak).

In addition there are some minor revisions described below.

Upon publication of Q4 2014, a minor error has been corrected which to a limited extent has affected the figures in Q2 and Q3 2014. The revision is of the order of 0.2 per cent on employment, hours worked and wages in the sector group corporations and organizations. Within the sector group general government the revision is much less.

Upon publication of Q2 2013 minor changes back in time have been incorporated, especially within the sector group general government. The changes are due, inter alia, to updated sectors and industries in the business register incorporated in the employment statistics for employees in the entire time series from Q1 2008 to Q2 2013, not least with regard to:

• Family care (DB07 = 879020)
• Hospital activities (DB07 = 861000).
• General public administration activities (DB07 = 841100, 841200)

On publication of WTA Q1 2013 and the annual WTA June 2013 the data from the statistics of employees was based on a preliminary version of Q4 2012. These were revised at the end of July 2013.

Coherence - cross domain

A fundamental principle of the Working Time Accounts is to document the coherence between statistics utilized in the Working Time Accounts and to document coherence between the primary statistical data and the Working Time Accounts.

The Danish Working Time Accounts are worked out according to international guidelines.

Transitional tables between the WTA and the Register-based Labour Force Statistics (employment) and the Establishment-related Employment Statistics (jobs and compensation of employees) is published in Statistical News ("Statistiske Efterretninger") for the annual WTA. A description of the transitional tables between the WTA and the National Accounts (employment, hours and compensation of employees) can be found in the publications on the National Accounts.

The basis of the number of jobs in the Working Time Account is end of November statements of the number of jobs in the Establishment-related Employment Statistics (ERE statistics). Unlike in the ERE statistics WTA number of jobs also include jobs in business statistics below the activity limit used in business statistics and also include jobs for people in eIncome not resident in Denmark.

Employment includes persons who are temporarily absent due to leave, but who have an affiliation to a workplace in the form of a job to return to. The transformation from job to employment include deduction of the persons' sideline jobs at the end of November and addition of the number of people who are either on sick leave, maternity leave or childcare leave from employment. Employment in The Register of Employment Statistics end of November (representing average employment per day in November in the WTA) includes, in addition to RAS employment also employment for persons not resident in Denmark. The Working Time Accounts employment for self-employed and assisting spouses is defined in the same manner as in the register-based labour force statistics (RAS), where self-employed consists of the following three groups: employers, VAT payers and other self-employed.

To get the average number of employees in Q4 WTA take an average of employment in October, November and December. The average employment during the year is calculated as the average number of employees in the 12 months of the year, or an average of employment in the four quarters of the calendar year. Similarly, the number of jobs in the year is calculated as the average number of jobs in each of the 12 months, where the number of jobs end of November in the Register of Employment Statistics represents the average number of jobs in the month of November in the WTA.

The concept of earnings in the WTA is the same as that used in the ERE statistics, but the population is slightly different because the ERE statistics operates with an activity limit (in accordance with international guidelines for business statistics), which is not used in labour market statistics (or economic statistics).

The revision in December 2012 implied a change in the division of labour between national accounts and work accounts so that the working time account adjusts what can be adjusted on job level, while national accounts make further adjustments on a more aggregate level. This change of labour division leads to greater differences between the working time accounts and national accounts figures. On the other hand, it implies that adjustments are made to the extent possible where the greatest expertise is. Finally, the changes in labour division also imply fewer revisions of the Working Time Accounts, which is hereby no longer dependent on the final data in the national accounts.

The new WTA also includes jobs for employees who do not live in Denmark, if they have jobs in companies in Denmark or on Danish ships. The WTA does not include employees of foreign companies working in Denmark the rules on hiring out of labour.

The compilation of Working Time Accounts is based on the idea that the figures are comparable over time to the highest possible degree. The sources will continuously be improved and replaced by other sources if these have proved to be more accurate. New sources will always be adapted to the concepts of the Working Time Accounts System. This implies that adjustments of existing sources cannot immediately be seen as changes of variables and concepts in the Working Time Accounts Statistics, although adjustments of the level of the specific variable may be made according to the new and improved information.

There may be several reasons for the lack of data comparability between the different statistics: - Differences in compilation methods - Differences in the population - Differences in the definitions - Differences in the margins of statistical errors - Differences in the time of publication.

Coherence - internal

See section Overall accuracy.