INE
Methods and standards
Electoral Census
Training and Employment
Products and Services
INE
Methods and standards
Electoral Census
Training and Employment
Products and Services
Methodology based on CNAE 2009:
Quarterly labour costs survey (QLCS) base 2008
Elaboration of retrospective series
Methodology based on CNAE 93:
Quarterly labour costs survey (QLCS) base 2000
Description of the survey
Objectives
The QLCS is a quarterly continuous short term statistical operation whose main objective is to provide information on:
- Average labour cost by employee and month.
- Average labour cost per effective hour worked.
- Time worked and not worked.
National and Autonomous Community results are obtained.
Scope, coverage and reference period
Geographical scope
Covers the whole country
Population scope
Comprises all freelance workers associated to the Social Security contribution accounts belonging to the General Écheme, whose economic activity is included in Sections B to S of CNAE-09 and to the Special Scheme for Sea Workers, whose economic activity is sea transport (division 50 of CNAE-09).
Coverage by sectors
The survey covers Industry, Construction and Services. Specifically, those contribution centres whose economic activities are covered in the sections from B to S of the Nacional Classification of Economic Activities 2009 (CNAE-09). In total, 82 divisions of CNAE-09 are studied.
Reference period
The results reference period is the natural quarter.
The information reference period requested in the questionnaire is the natural month.
Definitions
Employee
All persons tied to the producing unit by means of a work contract, independently of the type of said contract, are defined as workers.
The employees who are the object of the survey are all those associated to the contribution account for whom there has been a contribution required for at least one day of the reference month.
For the purposes of the labour costs calculation by worker, those that have been registered in the contribution account during a period of less than a month are accounted for in proportion to the time that they have been registered in said account.
For the results obtained on wage cost and working day, employees are classified according to their type of working day into full time employees and part time employees. Full time employees are considered those who work a normal company working day in the respective activity. Part time workers are those - and this must be reflected in their contract - those who work a day which is less than that considered as normal for the company in the respective activity or, if this does not exist, less than the established legal maximum.
Labour cost
This is defined as the total cost incurred by the employer by the use of the work factor. It includes wage cost plus other costs.
Cost of wages
Comprises all remunerations, both in cash and in kind, made to workers for the performance of their work services for others, whether it rewards effective work, whatever the method of remuneration, or the rest periods accounted for as work.
The wage cost therefore includes the base salary, salary complements, overtime payments, extraordinary payments and delayed payments.
All these components are covered in gross terms, in other words before deductions or payments to social security for the worker.
Other costs
The Other Costs include the Non-wage Expectations and the Obligatory Contributions to Social Security:
Non-wage payments are remuneration received by the worker not for the development of their labour activity but for compensation for expenses made while carrying out their work or to cover necessities or situations of inactivity not imputable to the employee. They include direct corporate benefits (payments for temporary disability, unemployment, compensation for dismissal,...) compensation payments (currency shortage, wear and tear of tools, acquisition of work garments, transport and food costs, bonus for distance and urban transport, compensation for transfers, termination of contract,...) and other non-wage payments.
Obligatory contributions to social security are the legally established contributions that the employer makes to the social security system in favour of their employees to cover the benefits that the system establishes and that come from situations of illness, maternity, work accident, invalidity, retirement, family, survival, unemployment, professional training, wage guarantee or any other contingency covered by the social security system.
Working day
This is the number of hours that each employee dedicates to their labour activity. The following concepts are differentiated.
Agreed hours: These are the hours legally established by verbal agreement, individual contract or collective agreement between the employee and the company.
Effective hours: These are the hours actually worked both in normal work as well as in overtime work periods, including those hours lost in the workplace, which are considered as effective time by virtue of the regulations in force.
They are obtained as the sum of agreed hours plus overtime and/or complementary hours minus hours not worked except hours lost in the workplace.
Hours not worked: These are hours not worked during the working day for any reason (holidays and bank holidays, temporary disability, maternity, adoption and personal reasons, rest for overtime compensation, union representation hours, fulfilling an inexcusable duty, attendance at exams and medical visits, days or hours not worked for technical, organisational or production reasons, hours lost in the workplace, labour conflict, absenteeism, legal guard, lockout, ...)
Indices and rates
Simple variation indices are calculated for the average Labour Costs. For this, the year 2008 is taken as a base, therefore the Cost Indices for the year 2008 make 100. A random index is calculated by means of the following formula:
Where C0 is the average cost in the base period 2008 and Ct is the average cost in the current quarter. The interannual variation rates of average costs are calculated as follows:
Where It-4 is the value of the index for the same quarter the previous year.
Sample design
The population scope used to extract the sample is the Social Security Contribution Accounts Directory, updated to 30 September of the year prior to the reference year.
The type of sample used is random stratified with optimal fixation in which the sample units are the contribution accounts.
The stratification criteria is carried out by dealing with three variable: the Autonomous Community, economic activity and the size of units.
Separate ratio estimators are used, and the number of employees in the social security contribution accounts directory is used as an auxiliary variable.
The number of sample units that are interviewed each quarter is more than 28.000
This sample is mixed uniformly into three monthly subsamples over the quarter in such a way that each subsample is always interviewed in the same month (the first, middle or last one) of each quarter. In this way, subsample is interviewed four times a year and each month some 9,350 units are surveyed.
The total sample is divided into five rotation groups in such a way that the first quarter of each year replaces the oldest group. This means a renewal of 20% of the sample. The units with more than 500 employees and those belonging to strata which are so small that their sample size necessarily coincides with the population that is not renewed and except cessation, they must remain continuously in the sample. These units represent 28% of the sample.
Description of published variables
Total cost: includes the total wage cost plus other costs.
Other costs: non-wage payments plus obligatory contributions minus social security subsidies and bonuses.
Total wage cost: this includes ordinary wage costs, extraordinary payments and delayed payments.
- Ordinary wage cost: are the monthly wage payments.
- Extraordinary payments wage cost: includes extraordinary payments and any other payment whose due date is more than a month (except delays).
- Delayed payments wage cost: these are payments made over the month and earnt in previous periods.
Extraordinary wage: cost: this is the wage cost for extraordinary payments plus the wage cost for delayed payments.
non-wage payments cost: includes cost for T.D. (temporary disability), for unemployment, other direct corporate benefits, compensation, dismissal and non-wage payments.
- T.D. (temporary disability) cost: payments for T.D. (temporary disability) at the employer's expense.
- Unemployment cost: payments for unemployment (reduction of working day and/or suspension of contract) at the cost of the employer.
- Cost for other direct corporate benefits: includes direct corporate benefits complementary to social security paid for by the employer.
- Cost for other non-wage payments: includes the rest of non-wage payments.
Cost for obligatory contributions: cost of obligatory social security paid for by the employer.
- Cost for common contingencies: contributions for common contingencies from obligatory social security paid for by the employer.
- Cost for unemployment, Fogasa and professional training: contributions paid for by the employer who covers these contingencies.
- Cost for other obligatory corporate contributions: this includes the rest of obligatory social security contributions
Social security subsidies and bonuses: reductions, bonuses and subsidies in social security liquidations.
Cost for dismissal: payments made as compensation for dismissal and extinction of contract.
Payments per day of T.D. (temporary disability):T.D. (temporary disability) payments paid for by the employer per day when the employee comes off work for this contingency.
Cost of compensation for dismissed employee: this is the quotient of the total cost for dismissal among the total dismissed workers4.
Cost per extra hour: overtime hours may be remunerated in cash or with remunerated rest hours. Cost per extra hour is the quotient between the sum of payments made for overtime hours plus the corresponding contributions for these hours plus the labour cost attributable to rest hours granted as compensation (see point 8 of the methodology) among the extra hours carried out.
Agreed hours: these are those legally established by employer/workers agreement (including that agreed for holidays and bank holidays).
Paid hours: includes hours worked and not worked.
Effective hours: these are hours really worked including extraordinary hours. They are calculated as the hours agreed plus extraordinary hours minus hours not worked by different causes.
Hours not worked: this is the total of agreed hours not worked for some reason. Included are: not worked by holidays, not worked for bank holidays (official and non-official), not worked by T.D. (temporary disability) not worked by maternity, adoption, paid leave (marriage, birth, death ...), not worked for technical or economic reasons (with or without employment regulation file), other hours not worked and paid (union representation, medical visits ...), not worked in the job post because of fuerza mayor (power cuts, breakage of machines ...), not worked due to labour conflict and finally not worked for other reasons (absenteeism, lockout ...).
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