What does the indicator describe?
The volume of labour comprises the hours actually worked by all persons in employment who perform a gainful activity as employees (wage earners, salary earners, public officials, marginally employed persons, soldiers) or as self-employed persons or family workers in Germany. People performing several jobs at the same time are also considered in the calculation of hours worked. However, hours paid, but not worked because of e.g. annual leave, parental leave, public holidays, short-time work or sick leave are not included in the volume of labour.
The definition of the volume of labour is based on the European System of Accounts (ESA 1995). As a result of increasing flexibility in working hours, the importance of the number of hours worked is increasing, not only for purposes of continuous labour market monitoring, but also for analysing productivity and the utilisation of labour.
The Institute for Employment Research of the Federal Employment Agency compiles, on a quarterly basis, the relevant data for national accounts purposes in collaboration with the Federal Statistical Office. In the national accounts, the results regarding the hours worked and volume of labour are based on the domestic concept (place-of-employment concept). They include all hours actually worked by persons in employment whose place of employment is in Germany, irrespective of their place of residence.
How is the indicator calculated?
The quarterly and annual data on persons in employment by status in employment and branch of economic activity of the national accounts form the basis for calculating the labour volume.
Calendar-based items, institutional factors (weekly working hours, holidays), cyclical effects (short-time work, paid overtime, working time account balances), people-related components (sickness absence, part-time employment including marginal employment, parental leave and partial retirement) and other effects (industrial disputes, secondary jobs, etc.) are taken into account in calculating the average hours actually worked.
In addition to administrative statistics of the Federal Employment Agency, statistics of the Federal Statistical Office such as results of the microcensus or the index of agreed earnings, information of the Tarifarchiv (central information unit) of the Institute of Economic and Social Research - WSI, the sickness absence statistics of the Federal Ministry of Health, and surveys conducted by the Institute for Employment Research are used as sources to calculate the average number of hours worked. The total hours worked (labour volume) is obtained by multiplying the number of persons in employment by the hours worked per person in employment.
When is the indicator released?
The Federal Statistical Office publishes, on a regular basis, quarterly and annual results regarding the average number of hours worked and the labour volume in Germany together with the number of persons in employment and the gross domestic product figure.
Quarterly data on the hours worked by persons in employment and employees, and broken down by ten aggregated economic sectors (in accordance with the German Classification of Economic Activities (WZ 2008) and the European Nomenclature générale des activités économiques dans les Communautés Européennes (NACE Revision 1.2), are published in Germany not later than roughly 48 days after the end of the respective quarter.
First provisional annual results are available not later than in mid-January of the following year. The quarterly figures are consistently linked to the annual results. In addition, annual results broken down by 38 economic sectors of the Classification of Economic Activities (WZ 2008) are available from reference year 1991.
Detailed results and long time series regarding the hours worked and volume of labour can be retrieved for free from the GENESIS-Online database tables on the national accounts of the Federation (code 81000: 81000-0015, 81000-0016, 81000-0113, 81000-0114). Furthermore tables are available in Fachserie 18 “Volkswirtschaftliche Gesamtrechnungen” (national accounts), Reihe 1.2 and 1.4.
Press releases and a detailed release calendar are available on the website of the Federal Statistical Office.
How accurate is the indicator?
First data on hours worked are released early to meet user demand for up-to-date and timely results although, frequently, the data basis is still incomplete at that time. As the source data required by the Institute for Employment Research for the calculation of hours worked become available successively, completeness and, as a result, the degree of accuracy of the average number of hours worked improve with the time that has elapsed since the end of the reference period. It is therefore necessary to adjust, at certain intervals, the labour volume data of a given period based on the latest insights and in the light of new working time arrangements.
As the number of persons in employment of the national accounts forms a major basis for calculating the hours worked, changes in that number typically have a direct effect on the number of hours worked.
More information on the calculation of hours worked is available in a range of publications of the Institute for Employment Research. These are provided on request by the Institute for Employment Research of the Federal Employment Agency in Nuremberg, while some of the publications can also be downloaded from the Institute’s website (www.iab.de).