Employment and national accounts
Employment and population have traditionally been considered auxiliary variables in national accounts, aimed to calculate ratios like value added, output, or labour costs per inhabitant or per employed person. Employment however has gained importance and nowadays it is an endogenous variable in the national accounts framework. Quarterly employment also stands now as a key short term economic indicator.
National accounts, however, do not provide information on social or gender aspects of employment. The classical and most reliable source for this information is the Labour Force Survey.
Additional information on employment
The ESA95 distinguishes two employment concepts depending on the geographical coverage: resident persons in employment (i.e. the national scope of employment) and employment in resident production units irrespective of the place of residence of the employed person (i.e. domestic scope).
The ESA95 recognises several employment measures: persons, hours worked, jobs and full-time equivalents. Eurostat publishes mainly employment data measured in persons and in hours worked. Some EU Member States use jobs and/or full-time equivalents.
Relation between employment in the labour force survey and in national accounts
Employment and national accounts - additional information
Employment sources and methods
Employment revision policy
Eurostat publishes via News Release a first quarterly estimate EU and EA of employment in national accounts (domestic concept) 75 days after the end of the reference period (t+75 days). First quarterly estimates of employment includes estimates for Total employment and by the employment status (Employees and Self-employed) as well as includes breakdown by economic activity (6 NACE categories) for data in persons and for EA also in hours worked.
There is a second estimate of employment - after t+100 days, published together with the third regular GDP release. There is no specific employment or GDP News Release at t+100 days. Euro area and EU employment figures for earlier quarters are revised in both first and second employment estimates.
