Statistics in Focus. Short-term business statistics - focus on employment.

Abstract

This publication focuses on employment data from short-term business statistics, and presents the long-term development in the employment index relative to the industrial and construction production indices and the services turnover index. Data is presented for the EU-27 with the analysis focusing on various activities. For industry and construction the analysis is presented for each of the main industrial groupings (MIGs) and at the NACE division level, while for services NACE sections and divisions are shown. Quarterly or annual time series are provided, for five or ten years. Data with a more detailed activity analysis is available on Eurostat's website, as is monthly data in some cases; a large amount of data for individual countries is also available. The publication shows that, over the periods analysed, employment fell overall in industry and rose in construction and services: a more detailed analysis identifies which activities went against the general trends, showing specific industrial activities that recorded employment growth, such as recycling, and the services activities where employment contracted, such as post and telecommunications. About three fifths (59 %) of employment in the EU-27’s non-financial business economy (as covered by STS indicators) was concentrated in non-financial services activities in 2005, the remaining share in industry and construction. The figure below shows the development of the employment index from 1998 for a selection of broad activities. While the index of employment fell in industry, it was relatively stable in transport and communications. Construction and the other non-financial service activities recorded growth. On average, from year to year, the industrial employment index went down by 1.2 % and the construction employment index increased by 1.4 %. At this level of detail computer and other business activities recorded the strongest growth, an annual average of 4.7 %.