SEASONAL ADJUSTMENTS

INTRODUCTION OF EUROPEAN UNION SERIES AND CHANGES TO EURO AREA SERIES
 

With the recent expansion of both the Euro Area to include Slovenia and the European Union to 27 countries the Main Economic Indicators has been introducing a change in its approach for compiling and disseminating statistics related to these regions. The new strategy implies that wherever possible, Euro Area and European Union data will be sourced from the relevant European authorities and the OECD will soon cease to perform our own calculations for these regions. In terms of codes, OECD compiled data for the Euro Area is indicated by the prefix EUZ whereas data supplied by European authorities uses the prefix of EMU. Note that the MEI has always published a combination of EUZ and EMU series, often for the same subject. In the case of the European Union, the prefix EUU will be used whereas OECD compiled series only relate to the former European Union of 15 countries indicated by the prefix E15.

The attached spreadsheet "European Union series for June MEI.xls" indicates the new EUU series published for the June MEI and the E15 series they essentially replace, together with newly added EMU series. To aid users in this transition, MEI electronic products will continue to publish EUZ and E15 series for the remainder of 2007. Also, for several subjects, EUU and EMU series will be linked to existing EUZ and E15 series to form long time series where this is seen as appropriate from a methodological perspective. The MEI online metadata at http://stats.oecd.org/mei/ will indicate where such linking has been performed.

Quarterly national accounts

There is one important exception to the above rule. As foreshadowed in the May DB notes, EUU series for quarterly national accounts have been introduced for this June MEI to replace the currently published E15 series. Thus for quarterly national accounts E15 series are no longer published. In addition, Euro area series for quarterly national accounts for June MEI are now sourced from Eurostat but are still published under the same prefix of EMU, thus revisions are expected for these series.

INTRODUCTION OF RELATIVE UNIT LABOUR COSTS IN MANUFACTURING

The spreadsheet "Relative Unit Labour Costs in Manufacturing.xls" contains the new competitiveness indicators (Relative unit labour costs in manufacturing) published for the June 2007 MEI.

Relative unit labour costs in manufacturing take into account not only changes in market exchange rates, but also variations in relative price levels using ULC in manufacturing, and therefore can be used as indicators of competitiveness. The change in a country's index of relative ULC in manufacturing between two years is obtained by comparing the change in the country's ULC index (converted into US dollars at market exchange rates) to a weighted average of changes in its competitors' ULC indices (also expressed in US dollars), using the weighting matrix for the current year (based on the importance of bilateral trade).

All unit labour costs in manufacturing data used in the compilation of the relative ULC in manufacturing index is sourced via the OECD System of Unit Labour Cost Indicators. All data and metadata for this indicator can be found in the following link: http://stats.oecd.org/mei/default.asp?rev=3

INTRODUCTION OF NEW BALANCE OF PAYMENTS SERIES

FOR FURTHER DETAILS

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