Labour Cost Survey  is an enterprise based survey and represents one of the main sources for measuring the levels and composition of labour costs, Labour cost accounts for the substantial part of costs for production of goods and services and corresponds to the expenditures incurred by employers for hiring their staff

Legal Base

• Law No.17/2018 on Official Statistics;
• Official Statistics National Programme 2017-2021
• Council Regualtion 530/1999, Commission Regulation 1737/2005

The main variables of administrative data on Labour Cost are grouped into the following categories:

Identification variables

• NIPT, Name, Address, Communication (Tel, Fax etc.)

Lier variables

• Main economic activity, size by employees,

Economic variables

• Total gross wages, Employer and employee contributions, non-working  and working hours, Remunerations and other regular or non-regular allowances and other expenses for staff.

Statistical sources

• Labor Cost Survey;

Sources for updating variables

Statistical sources

• Labor Cost Survey;

Updated variables are:
Total gross wages, Employer and employee contributions, Unworked working hours, Other regular and non-regular bonuses and other expenses for staff members.

Definitions

• Labour Costs refer to the total expenditure borne by employers for the purpose of employing staff , They include employee compensation, which is mainly comprised of gross wages and salaries in cash and in kind and employers’ social security contributions, vocational training costs, other expenditure, such as recruitment costs and spending on working clothes, and employment taxes regarded as labour costs minus subsidies received,
• Hourly labour costs are annual labour costs divided by the number of hours worked during the reference year
• Monthly labour costs per employee are the annual labour costs divided by 12 and by the average number of employees during the year (converted into full-time equivalents),
• Employees are all persons who work directly with the enterprise and receive remuneration from employer,
• Full-time employees are those whose regular working hours are the same as the collectively agreed or customary hours worked in the enterprise or local unit (are contracted as full time), even if their contract is for less than one year,
• Part-time employee is someone who generally works fewer hours than full-time employees of the same enterprise,
• Apprentices are all employees who do not yet fully participate in the production process and who work either under an apprenticeship contract or in a situation in which vocational training predominates over productivity,
• Average number of hours per week normally worked are hours regularly worked or contracted hours for a typical employee of the following categories in a typical week: a full-time employee, a part-time employee and an apprentice,
• Wage and salaries for full-time and parttime employees include bonuses, pay for piecework and shift work, allowances, fees, tips and gratuities, commission and remuneration in kind,
• Direct remuneration, bonuses and allowances include the values of any social contributions, income taxes, etc,, payable by the employee even if they are actually withheld by the employer and paid directly to social-insurance schemes, tax authorities etc, on behalf of the employee,
• Payments for days not worked (include part covered by employer only) refers to the remuneration paid for statutory, contractual or voluntarily granted leave and public holidays or other paid days not worked,
• Wages and salaries in kind (Fringe benefits) are wages and salaries which are not cash transactions; they are goods, services, or other benefits provided free or at reduced prices by the employer to the employees,
• Employers’ Social contributions are the social contributions incurred by employers in order to secure for their employees (full-time and part-time employees) the entitlement to social benefits,
• Vocational training costs paid by the employer include the expenditures on vocational-training services and facilities,
• Employment Taxes (Not Income taxes) cover all taxes based on the wage and salary bill or on employment, These taxes are regarded as labour costs, Here are included penalty taxes to be paid by employers for employing too few handicapped persons, and similar taxes or fees,
• Subsidies received by the employer are all amounts received in the form of subsidies of a general nature by the employer intended to refund part or all of the cost of direct remuneration of employees, but not intended to cover social-security or vocational-training costs,
• Reference period – data collected through labour cost survey refer to the financial year 2016,