Statistical presentation

Data description

The labour costs for corporations and organizations are published for 9 main class of industry and 9 occupations. Other labour costs are based on a special sample survey of enterprises with 10 or more employees, also including apprentices and young employees under the age 18. However, employees in business enterprises within agriculture and fisheries are excluded from the sample. The main concept is total labour costs related to the number of hours worked. Total labour costs include total earnings and other labour costs, total, both items are related to the number of hours worked. Hours of work are understood to mean the number of hours actually performed. Hours of absenteeism due to sickness and holidays are excluded. The data on hours of work are obtained from the structure of earnings. Other labour costs are costs that are not considered to be an income for an employee. Other labour costs are broken down by the following items: contributions to public funds, other compulsory costs, contributions according to agreement, education costs and other staff costs.

Classification system

The class of industry used for the statistics are based on the Danish Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities 2007 (DB07), while group of occupation follow the DISCO-08 classification.

• Industry: Information on the industry of the business enterprise is obtained from the Central Business Register. Employees are classified according to the Danish Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities 2007, which is based on the common European nomenclature of industries NACE rev.2. Before 2008 the Danish Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities 2003 was used, which was based on the common European nomenclature of industries NACE rev.1.1.
• Occupation: The information on occupation is obtained from the structure of earnings. On the basis of the DISCO-08 then employees are distributed by occupation. The occupation of an employee is indicative of the clearly defined tasks and duties involved in an employee's job. The classification of occupations is based on DISCO-08 as from the year 2010, which is the official Danish version of the international classification of occupations called "The International Standard Classification of Occupation, ISCO 08, which is prepared by the International Organisation, ILO. The classification is also applied in the context of the EU. DISCO-08 is a revised version of the previously used classification DISCO-earnings. DISCO-08 is used for the first in the structural statistics on earnings in 2010. For further information about the classification and the specific changes incorporated into the revised version of the classification can be seen at: https://www.dst.dk/disco. There is no homogeneous conversion key between DISCO-earnings and DISCO-08. Consequently, total labour costs distributed by occupations are not comparable backwards in time.

Sector coverage

The statistics cover corporations and organizations, but not employees in the economic activities agriculture or fisheries.

Statistical concepts and definitions

Contributions according to agreement: Contributions according to agreement comprise employers' contributions to various funds and group life assurance.

Other compulsory costs: Other compulsory costs consist of employers' compulsory contributions to work-related injury insurance, occupational disease insurance (AES) and contributions to maternity fund. Other items included here are reimbursement of unemployment benefits in connection with lay-offs and redundancies, etc. Data on the latter type of costs are collected via the survey of structural earnings.

Other staff costs: Other staff costs include, e.g. contributions to professional indemnity insurance, contributions to other voluntary employee-related insurances, contributions to the business enterprise's pension fund, recruitment costs, anniversary bonus and redundancy payments. Data on the two last-mentioned types of cost are collected via the survey of earnings. Furthermore, other staff costs include all other labour costs in connection with the business enterprise's staff that cannot be referred to costs belonging to the compulsory information on earnings or other costs falling under other labour costs.

Examples of costs in the latter category are: Private job-training, work clothes and laundering, staff conferences, first aid equipment and other safety equipment, expenses on personal care, fringe benefits that are not liable to tax, canteen, etc. Among staff costs, the latter category accounts for the greatest expenses per hour.

Contributions to public funds: Contributions to public funds include contributions to Employers' Refunds for Apprentices (AER), contributions to sickness benefits, finance contributions and tax on payroll as well as contributions to the public flexjob scheme and the public parental fund. The latter is paid by industries that are not subject to VAT-payments and represent mainly the financial and insurance industries. The following industries real estate, health care and culture are only partially registered for the payroll fee.

Total earnings per hour worked: Total earnings per hour worked = Total earnings / Total number of hours worked

Earnings comprise each employee's total earnings in connection with his/her job, including employees' or employers' share of any pension contributions and other income in the form of fringe benefits to the extent that these are liable to tax.

Hours of work are understood to mean the number of hours actually performed. Hours of absenteeism due to sickness and holidays are excluded. The data on hours of work are obtained from the structure of earnings.

Total earnings per hour worked tells how much the employee receives as earnings or wage in relation to an hour worked. At the same time, the concept tells something about how much it costs the employer to have an employee working for him/her in terms of wage for an hour. Furthermore, it can not be recommended to use total earnings per hour as an indicator of wage in an occupation or industry, as it also takes into account e.g. payments due to absence.

Sickness payments per hour worked: Employers payment in case of absence due to sickness, child sickness, maternity, accident and other sorts of absence of the employee. In other words, only payments that are covered by the employer. This also includes payments where the employer receives refund from the public at a later stage.

Payments for work outside normal hours (not overtime) per hour worked: Payments for work outside normal hours e.g. night work and work on Sundays (not overtime) per hour worked.

Overtime pay per hour: Overtime pay relates to work performed outside the normal working hours.

Payments for pension schemes per hour worked: Employers and employees contribution to the pension schemes, excluding pension schemes not administered by the employer.

Employee benefits per hour worked: Employee benefits only include benefits that are subject to taxes, such as a free use of car, diet, accommodation and employer-paid health insurance.

Refunds from public funds: Refunds from public funds include refunds from the AER, wage subsidies, refunds in connection with education and refunds for payroll costs in connection, e.g. sickness.

Total labour costs: Total labour costs are all costs of a business enterprise that are involved in employing one person, for each hour the person is on his/her job. Total labour costs include total earnings and other labour costs, total, both items are related to the number of hours worked.

Education costs: Education costs cover costs on external education, in-house education and remuneration of external teachers.

Irregular payments per hour worked: Irregular payments per hour worked include e.g. bonuses, allowances and late regulations of earnings.

Other labour costs: Other labour costs are costs that are not considered to be an income for an employee. Other labour costs are broken down by the following items: contributions to public funds, other compulsory costs, contributions according to agreement, education costs and other staff costs.

Statistical unit

The statistical unit is the individual job, which is defined as a person employed with a specific employer and engaged in a specific occupation.

Statistical population

The statistical population is all persons employed in companies or organisations with ten or more employees, but not within the economic activities agriculture or fisheries. Labour costs for the private sector are based on the annual structure of earnings statistics and the survey of other labour costs of the private sector, which is also annual. For more information on the annual structure of earnings statistics see its documentation of statistics.

The survey on other labour costs for enterprises in the private sector is based on a special sample of enterprises with 10 or more employees, and the sample is drawn with the use of the Danish Business Register. The sample is stratified to cover enterprises in different size groups (number of employees) and class of industry.

Reference area

The reference area is Denmark.

Time coverage

The current time series covers the period from 2014-.

Base period

Not relevant for these statistics.

Unit of measure

The counting unit is kr. (Danish kroner) per hour worked.

Reference period

01-01-2022 - 31-12-2022

Frequency of dissemination

The statistics are published annually.

Legal acts and other agreements

Information is collected in accordance with the Act on Statistics Denmark §8.

Council Regulation (EC) No. 530/1999 Statistics on Wages and Labour Cost Structures forms the legal basis for the survey. To this is added that annual updates of the survey are submitted in accordance with the so-called gentlemen's agreement.

Cost and burden

Data on other labour costs are reported via questionnaires, which are submitted and collected through one of the above organisations. In order to reduce the response burden, data on other labour costs are collected from a sample. Please see the documentation of statistics "Structure of earnings" with respect to the survey of earnings.

Comment

Other information is available at the subject page on (Labour costs)(https://www.dst.dk/da/Statistik/emner/erhvervsliv/erhvervslivets-oekonomi/virksomheders-arbejdsomkostninger.aspx) and Statistics on Earnings and Labour costs.