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OECD Economic Outlook
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Table 11 Compensation per employee in the business sector
Table 12 Labour productivity for the total economy
Table 13 Unemployment rates: commonly used definitions
Table 14 Standardised unemployment rates
Table 15 Labour force, employment and unemployment
Table 16 GDP deflators
Table 17 Private consumption deflators
Table 18 Consumer price indices
Table 19 Oil and other primary commodity markets
Annex Table 11 - Compensation per employee in the business sector
Definition: Average compensation defined as covering all wages paid to wage earners plus all non-wage labour costs paid by employers (e.g. to unemployment insurance, social security, pensions). Compensation is calculated per employee accounted for in the national accounts.
Related links: National Accounts and The 1993 System of National Accounts, Glossary
Last updated: 15 March 2007
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Annex Table 12 - Labour productivity for the total economy
Definition: Real GDP per employed person.
Related links: National Accounts and The 1993 System of National Accounts, Glossary
Last updated: 15 March 2007
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Annex Table 13 - Unemployment rates: commonly used definitions
Annex Table 14 - Standardised unemployment rates
Annex Table 15 - Labour force, employment and unemployment
Definition: This section outlines the sources and definitions of the data concerning labour markets. Where different series are available, those chosen are the ones which the OECD Economics Department finds most useful for policy analysis and forecasting, usually because they are the most commonly cited, and are frequently published. The data are not always consistent with the national authorities definitions or those published in the OECD's annual publication Labour Force Statistics (LFS). Exceptions are noted below.
For most countries the source of these data is a labour force survey of a sample of households in which both components of the unemployment rate (UNR), unemployment levels (UN) and labour force (LF), are measured simultaneously. For the remaining countries, one of the components of the identity LF = UN + ET (total employment) is derived from the other two, which may be estimated from different sources. The term "total" is used with reference to labour force and employment to indicate that all armed forces (conscripts as well as professional military) are included. In some countries (indicated below), employment and labour force include professional military, but exclude conscripts. "Civilian" labour force and employment data exclude all military personnel. Participation rates are calculated as the labour force divided by the total working-age population, where the count of the working-age population based on national census estimates, is normally restricted to individuals 16 through 64 years of age, while the labour force, employment and unemployment refer in general to the population 15 and over. Unless otherwise specified, monthly or quarterly data are seasonally adjusted by the OECD and annual data refer to the average of either monthly or quarterly data.. When quarterly data on employment are available on a National Accounts basis (domestic concept), they are used to derive variables such as labour productivity and labour costs. The standard labour unit is the count of persons. As concerns the standardised unemployment rate, the figures conform to those shown in the OECD Employment Outlook. The data have been adjusted to ensure comparability over time and to conform to the guidelines of the International Labour Office. All series are benchmarked to labour-force-survey-based estimates. In countries with annual surveys, monthly estimates are obtained by interpolation/extrapolation and by incorporating trends in administrative data, where available. The annual figures are then calculated by averaging the monthly estimates (for both unemployed and the labour force). For countries with monthly or quarterly surveys, the annual estimates are obtained by averaging the monthly or quarterly estimates, respectively. For several countries, the adjustment procedure used is similar to that of the Bureau of Labour Statistics, U.S. Department of Labour. For EU countries, the procedures are similar to those used in deriving the Comparable Unemployment Rates (CUR) of the Statistical Office of the European Communities. Minor differences may appear mainly because of various methods of calculating and applying adjustment factors, and because EU estimates are based on the civilian labour force.
Individual country notes
Australia: Data for unemployment, employment and the labour force are taken from the monthly Household Labour Force Survey. Persons laid-off for less than four weeks (because of bad weather or plant breakdown) are included among the employed; all other layoffs are considered as unemployed or out of the labour force. The national unemployment rate is calculated with reference to the civilian labour force. Data are seasonally adjusted at source.
Austria: Data on registered unemployment and employment are from the Labour Office. The unemployment series is corrected for statistical breaks. The labour force is derived as the sum of dependent employment, self-employment (based on National Accounts (national concept) data from WIFO) and unemployment.
Belgium: Employment data conform to ESA95 definitions and are supplied by the National Accounts Institute. Unemployment data are standardised and come from Eurostat.
Canada: Unemployment, civilian employment and civilian labour force are from the monthly Labour Force Survey of persons aged 15 and over. Unemployment also includes persons who, while not actively looking for work in the preceding four weeks, were available for work, but were on temporary layoff or had a new job to start in four weeks or less. The data are seasonally adjusted by the national authorities.
Czech Republic: Data for unemployment, employment and the labour force are taken from the quarterly Labour Force Survey.
Denmark: The Eurostat standardised Labour Force Survey measure of unemployment is used from EO68 onwards. This measure is typically a half to one percentage point below the claimant-count unemployment rate that is most often used in a national Danish context. Employment figures are based on the National Accounts rather than the Labour Force Survey.
Finland: Data for unemployment, civilian employment and civilian labour force are from the monthly Labour Force Survey of persons. Unemployment figures exclude persons over the age of 60 receiving a pre-retirement unemployment pension and persons participating in active labour market programmes.
France: INSEE provides the OECD with quarterly series on civilian employment. Figures for the armed forces are added in order to arrive at total employment. Quarterly unemployment data, derived from a monthly household survey, are also provided by INSEE. The labour force is the sum of total employment and unemployment. Data are seasonally adjusted at source.
Germany: Data on employment and unemployment are taken from national accounts. The labour force is derived as the sum of total employment (dependent and self-employed) and unemployment. Up to 1991, data refer to western Germany only. Data are seasonally adjusted at source. Unemployment rates, employment rates and participation rates are derived from the National Accounts data; they are not comparable with those published in the OECD Annual Labour Force Statistics and the OECD Employment Outlook.
Greece: Before 1996, unemployment, total employment and total labour force data are compiled from the annual Labour Force Survey. Since 1996, data are consistent with national Accounts. There is a break in series between 1995 and 1996.
Hungary: Data for unemployment, civilian employment and the civilian labour force are taken from the OECD Quarterly Labour Force Statistics following internationally standardised definitions and are derived from the national authorities' quarterly Labour Force Survey. Data refer to the population from 15 to 74 years old and exclude from the labour force those individuals receiving childcare benefits and not working.
Ireland: Survey data for employment and unemployment are used to derive the total labour force and unemployment rate. Up to 1997 the figures are from the annual Labour Force Survey and relate to mid-April of each year. Since autumn 1997, the Central Statistics Office has implemented a Quarterly National Household Survey. The results of this survey have been used to generate figures since that time.
Italy: Employment, unemployment and labour force are from the quarterly Labour Force Survey. There have been two major revisions to the survey. First, in October 1992 revisions included an extension of the list of branches of economic activity, a more detailed questionnaire and a redefinition of "job seekers", counting as unemployed persons only those aged over 15 who were available for work and took at least one initiative to find a job in the 30 days preceding the labour force survey. Second, in July 1999, the survey was rebased such that greater weight is now given to the 35-64 age group. The national Labour Force Survey data are adjusted by the OECD for seasonal variations and for statistical breaks since 1981.
Japan: Unemployment, employment and labour force (including national "self-defense" forces) are from the monthly Labour Force Survey.
Korea: Unemployment, employment and labour force (excluding the armed forces) are based on the monthly Economically Active Population Survey. Employment includes unpaid family workers who work more than 18 hours a week. The job search duration criterion was changed from one week to four weeks in June 2005 and data were revised back until 2000. Consequently unemployment is defined as persons without work who looked for a job during the past four weeks instead of the previous week as it was before.
Luxembourg: Employment data are provided by the national statistical agency (STATEC). Unemployment refers to those registered at the Administration de l'emploi (ADEM) and resident in Luxembourg. The labour force is calculated as the sum of national employment (which excludes non-residents working in Luxembourg but includes residents working abroad and international civil servants) and unemployment.
Mexico: An important change in definition (in line with new developments in Mexican statistics) has occurred since the June 2004 Economic Outlook 75 was published. Therefore starting with Economic Outlook 76, data are not comparable with previous issues of the Economic Outlook. Data for the working-age population, labour force, total employment and unemployment as well as self-employment and dependent employment, are taken from the National Survey of Employment (ENE), covering the whole territory. Annual data reported in the tables have been adjusted by the national authorities. They are available from 1991 onwards. Over the period 1991 to 1994, the Survey was conducted on a bi-annual basis only; from 1995 to 2000 the Survey was annual. From 2000 onwards, it is quarterly and the data reported refer to the second quarter of each year. Estimates for 1992 and 1994 are obtained by interpolation between the survey years 1991, 1993 and 1995. Data for general government employees are taken from the Mexican National Accounts (Sistema de Cuentas Nacionales de México, Indicadores Macroeconómicos del Sector Publico (INEGI, Institute National of Statistics, Geography and Informatics).
Netherlands: Unemployment refers to persons registered at employment offices who do not work at all or who work fewer than 12 hours per week, and who are available for paid work for at least 12 hours per week. The series is based on the monthly survey undertaken by Statistics Netherlands. Total employment is taken from the national Labour Force Survey and refers to persons, aged between 15 and 64 and working more than 12 hours per week. The total labour force is then derived from the identity LF = ET + UN. The employment figures from the Labour Force Survey differ from those in the national accounts source. The latter, expressed in full-time equivalents, are used for derived variables such as labour productivity and labour costs.
New Zealand: Data on unemployment, employment and the labour force are from the Household Labour Force Survey. Data prior to 1986 have been chain-linked with the new series. Data are seasonally adjusted at source.
Norway: Data on unemployment, employment and labour force are taken from the Quarterly Labour Force Survey of persons aged 16 to 74. Since 2006, the lower age to participate in the survey is reduced to 15 years of age. The seasonally-adjusted rate of unemployment is calculated by the OECD on the basis of national aggregate statistics, and differs somewhat from the corresponding figure published by Statistics Norway, Oslo, which is based on an aggregation of labour force statistics seasonally adjusted at the regional and occupational levels.
Poland: Civilian labour force, employment and unemployment data are from the Central Statistical GUS. Unemployment data is from Labour Force Surveys (LFS), except for two quarters of 1999 which have been estimated due to the temporary interruption of the survey.
Portugal: Unemployment, civilian employment and civilian labour force are derived from the quarterly Labour Force Survey referring to persons aged 14 and over up to 1997, and persons aged 15 and over as of 1998. The series have been adjusted for statistical breaks in 1973/74, 1982/83, 1991/92 and 1997/98. The 1998 data series are based on new estimates of the population from the 2001 Census final results. The professional army is included while conscripts are excluded (since 2005 there have been no more conscripts). Figures reported in the OECD Economic Outlook SUBCE 1998 adopt the narrower definition of unemployment which applies a one-month reference period for job search.
Slovak Republic: Data for unemployment are published by the Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic and based on quarterly Labour Force Survey.
Spain: Unemployment, employment and labour force are from the quarterly Labour Force Survey of persons aged 16 and over living in households (excluding, for instance, residents at institutions like religious establishments). Prior to 1988, data exclude the provinces of Ceuta and Melilla. A complete change in the sample of census areas took place between the first quarter of 1995 and the second quarter of 1996, and a partial one in the first quarter of 2000. Some methodological changes in the way data are collected were introduced at the beginning of 1999. The employment data are measuring full time equivalents.
Sweden: Unemployment and employment data are from the monthly Labour Force Survey of persons aged 16 to 64. There is a break in the series in 1986 and in April 2005. The data are seasonally-adjusted by the OECD.. The labour force is derived from the identity LF = ET + UN.
Switzerland: Unemployment and employment refer to quarterly Labour Force Survey. The labour force is derived from the identity LF = ET + UN. Self-employment data are based on a yearly series which is extrapolated to get the quarterly series. The data are seasonally-adjusted by the OECD.
Turkey: The labour market statistics from 1978 to 1987 are based on estimates of the State Planning Organisation. Since 1988, labour market statistics are derived from the biannual labour force Surveys of the State Statistics Institute of Turkey; as of 2000, the surveys are quarterly. Annual figures refer to the average of the (April and October) biannual or quarterly surveys.
United Kingdom: Employment, unemployment and total labour force are from the quarterly Labour Force Survey. But the OECD Economic Outlook statistics differ slightly from those published in the LFS, due to realignment of data on to a different calendar period and seasonal adjustment methods. Government employment and participants on government training schemes are taken from Labour Market Trends. Total employment equals civilian employment plus the armed forces.
United States: Unemployment, civilian employment and civilian labour force are from the monthly Current Population Survey of persons aged 16 and over. The data are seasonally adjusted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Since January 1994, the data have been based on a new survey methodology, and are not directly comparable with data for previous years. For a full discussion of the implications of the change see Box 1 in the OECD Economic Survey of the United States (November 1994). Data are seasonally adjusted at source.
Last updated: 15 March 2007
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Annex Table 16 - GDP deflators
Definition: Index of market prices for the total of goods and services entering gross domestic product. Per cent change from previous period.
Related links: National Accounts and The 1993 System of National Accounts, Glossary
Last updated: 15 March 2007
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Annex Table 17 - Private consumption deflators
Definition: Index of market prices for goods and services entering private consumption. Per cent change over previous period of the private consumption deflator.
Related links: Consumer prices (Annex Table 18), National Accounts, The 1993 System of National Accounts, Glossary and The United Nations Technical note on National Accounts
Last updated: 15 March 2007
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Annex Table 18 - Consumer price indices
Definition: The consumer price index as constructed by national statistical offices and the harmonised index of consumer prices for euro area countries and the United Kingdom.
Sources: OECD, Main Economic Indicators
Last updated: 15 March 2007
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Annex Table 19 - Oil and other primary commodity markets
Definition: The price of Brent crude oil as posted on the London International Petroleum Exchange, monthly averages of weekly data.
The source of data on non-oil commodity prices is the commodity price indices excluding oil compiled by the Hamburg Institute for Economic Research (HWWA).
Sources: International Petroleum Exchange, London, UK; Hamburg Institute for Economic Research (HWWA); International Energy Agency, Monthly Oil Market Report, various issues.
Last updated: 15 March 2007
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