Short-term business statistics (STS) Presentation to user network 26 January 2010 Brian Newson, Head of Unit G-3 26 January 2010 STS

Coverage of Short-term business statistics 26 January 2010 STS

STS publications STS are 8/19 PEEIs, so Euro-indicators 60 News releases (5 indicators monthly) 4 Quarterly Panorama of European Business 6 Statistics in Focus per year Dedicated section contains lots of background information on regulations, sources and methods, etc. 26 January 2010 STS

STS especially interesting in recession 26 January 2010 STS

STS Statistics in focus on recession Recession in the EU: output measures Economic downturn in the EU: the impact on employment in the business economy Economic downturn in the EU: the impact on retail trade Recession in the EU: length and depth of the downturn varies across activities and countries. 26 January 2010 STS

STS changeover to NACE rev 2 In 2009 STS changed over successfully to NACE rev 2 and 2005=100 April 2009 for monthly series June 2009 quarterly series New series back casted to “at least 2000” Old series (rev 1 and 2000=100) discontinued 26 January 2010 STS

Your questions: 1. price indices for contracts ? “Short-term statistics and the issue of contract prices in the context of NACE rev 1.1 to NACE rev 2 change. The question has arisen several times in the last two months and can be a potential legal minefield. How do we overcome this ?” My answer: Problem for the companies, not Eurostat. They should identify new NACE rev 2 series and renegotiate contracts. Even series with same name do not have same development because of new 2005 weights. 26 January 2010 STS

Your questions: 2. STS to project SBS ? “Validity of use of STS index data as an aid to estimating business performance when the basis is SBS data. With SBS data complete to end 2007 and users wanting to project industry performance ahead through 2008 and 2009 how can they use STS index data to do this reliably - or should they do it at all given that the series are based on NACE rev 1.1 and rev 2 ?” 26 January 2010 STS

My answer 2. STS to project SBS ? In principle, STS might seem like a monthly (or quarterly) series for a subset of SBS indicators. In practice SBS reflects changes in enterprise structure and classification from one year to another, whereas STS tries to minimise these (graphs next slide) Adoption of NACE rev 2 in SBS from 2008 onwards introduces a complete break in SBS series. Eurostat hopes to have data back to 2005 in 2012 Therefore we recommend STS for historical dynamics and SBS for detailed snapshot of the business economy. 26 January 2010 STS

26 January 2010 STS

Finally, my question to you…. From your experience, what do you suggest we can do to improve the service we give in STS indicators ? 26 January 2010 STS