The main source for the quarterly unemployment statistics is the European Union Labour Force Survey (EU LFS). The EU LFS is governed by legislative acts of the Council and Parliament, as well as the Commission for implementation. The principal legislation is the Council Regulation (EC) No 577/98 of 9 March 1998 on the organisation of a labour force sample survey in the Community (OJ No L 77/3).
Eurostat is complementing this quarterly data with the monthly indicator of the national unemployment delivered from the Member States as a result of a gentlemen's agreement.
Labour cost components and their elements are defined in Commission Regulation (EC) No 1726/1999 of 27 July 1999 implementing Council Regulation (EC) No 530/1999.
The definition of hours worked can be found in Annex A, Chapter 11, to Council Regulation (EC) No 2223/1996 of 25 June 1996 on the European system of national and regional accounts in the Community.
All European Union's legislative acts can be found on the portal to European Union law: EUR-Lex.
The Conventional Earnings Indices are based on gentlemen’s agreements.
Information on coverage, periodicity, timeliness, quality of unemployment data, and methodological issues can be found in the Euroindicators metadata:
More information related to labour cost can be found on the EU LFS webpage, in particular LFS Publications on methods, results and quality.
