Measurement of wages in the Netherlands

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Measurement of wages in the Netherlands

• Herman
  Slagter
• hsgr_at_cbs.nl
• Statistics
  Netherlands
• 
  http//www.cbs.nl/en

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Outline of my talk

• Statistics Netherlands
• Earnings and labour costs surveys
• - Survey on Employment and Earnings-
  Structure of Earnings Survey- Labour Costs
  Survey - Index of wages and labour costs as
  measured in collective agreements
• Statline the electronic database

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Statistics Netherlands

• 2600 employees
• responsible for official national statistics
• semi-independent agency within the Central
  Government
• Central Commission for Statistics decides on the
  statistical work programme
• the Minister for Economic Affairs is politically
  responsible for legislation and for budget

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Earnings and labour costs surveys

• Division of Social and Spatial Statistics
• Statistical Analysis department
• Basic principles for collecting wage data
• establishment surveys and administrative sources
• target diminishing the administrative burden
• establishment surveys wage data have to be
  available in payroll administrationsmissing data
  are estimated

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Survey on Employment and Earnings (SEE)

• all economic sections and size classes
• paper questionnaires and electronic data capture
• data on number of jobs and payroll totals
• individual data of employees regarding monthly
  and annual wages and hours workedoutput
  (yearly) hourly, monthly and annual wages by
  economic activity, size class, sex, age,
  full-time/part-time, length of service

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Wage data in SEE

• last payment period
• wage in cash before deduction of tax and social
  security contributions excluding- incidental
  bonuses- allowances for work-related expenses
• of which payments for overtime
• last year
• wage before deduction of tax and social security
  contributions of which incidental bonuses

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Hours worked in SEE

• last payment period
• contractual weekly hours (full-timers)
• usual weekly hours contractual weekly hours
  extra hours not considered as overtime
  (part-timers)
• actual weekly hours (flexible workers)
• paid overtime hours
• last year
• paid leave hours (entitlement)
• public holidays

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Calculation hourly gross wages SEE

• hourly gross wage gross monthly wage 12 /
  annual hours
• definition of wage is more limited than the
  ESA-definition (only gross basic wage in cash)
• hours are excluding overtime hours, leave hours
  and hours of public holidays

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Structure of Earnings Survey (SES) (1)

• Secondary statistics
• Survey on Employment and Earnings (SEE)
• Labour Force Survey (LFS) Population Register
• SEE wage data, but not educational level,
• occupation and nationality
• LFS no wage data, but employees can be
• distinguished by educational level and occupation
• Population register nationality
• Record matching

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Structure of Earnings Survey (SES) (2)

• National survey
• SEE definitions
• irregular frequency
• European survey
• wages include overtime pay
• hours paid include paid overtime, paid leave
  hours and paid public holidays
• four-yearly

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Labour Costs Survey (LCS)

• European Survey
• very broad definition of wages (ESA)
• hours paid and hours actually worked
• annual totals and averages
• four-yearly annual updating core figures
• Secondary statistics
• individual SEE data form the backbone
• missing wage and labour costs components and data
  on hours paid but not worked are imputed

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Index of wages and labour costs as measured in
collective agreements

• a large number of points in the salary schemes of
  260 collective wage agreements are followed
• wages contractual basic wages including as well
  as excluding contractual incidental bonuses
• hours contractual working time minus paid leave
  hours and paid public holidays
• labour costs contractual employers social
  contributions
• monthly frequency

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Statline the electronic database

• http//www.cbs.nl/en
• accessible to everyone
• all information is free of charge
• one can generate own tables or graphs
• wage data in main group labour, income and
  social security / labour market / employment and
  earnings
• English version of Statline not yet completewage
  data still missingthis summer wage data will be
  made available