1. Quarterly Earnings Statistics
Kieran Walsh
Senior Statistician
Labour Market and Earnings Analysis

2. Outline of Presentation
1. Data collection
2. Primary indicators
3. Additional indicators

3. Quarterly earnings data collection
Historically multiple earnings surveys
Covered different sectors (public sector, industry, building, distributive trade, financial services) but not comprehensive
Different methods and coverage
No all sectors estimation possible
Earnings hours and employment costs survey (EHECS) initiated in 2005 – initially covered industry and finance
In Q extended to all sectors of the economy

4. Quarterly earnings data collection contd.
EHECS collects information on the following main elements from enterprises with 3+ employees:
Regular earnings
Irregular earnings
Other labour costs
Paid hours
Employment
Broken down full time/part time and 3 occupational groups
Aggregate level information collected

5. Quarterly earnings data collection contd.
Data collected from all enterprises with 50 or more employees
Sample of smaller enterprises
High burden survey – done according to Labour Costs Survey framework (detailed) – no separate LCS required
In 2009/2010 a number of steps taken to reduce burden
Reduced sample
Reduced form for smaller enterprises
Done so as to maintain key outputs
Improved timeliness as a result

6. Quarterly earnings statistics – key indicators – weekly earnings

7. Quarterly earnings statistics – key indicators – weekly earnings
Average weekly earnings overall down over the period
Private sector steadily down during 2008/9 – fluctuating in 2010
Public sector up in 2008, fluctuated 2009 (excluding pension levy effect), down in 2010 following pay cut
By size class all fluctuating but no major pattern

8. Quarterly earnings statistics – key indicators – hourly earnings

9. Quarterly earnings statistics – key indicators – hourly earnings
Paid hours have been cut most notably in private sector and smaller enterprises
As such some of cuts in weekly earnings not replicated in hourly earnings
Most notable shift in hourly earnings in public sector where pay cut shifted level down in 2010

10. Interpretation issues
Refers to remaining enterprises and employees
Some queries regarding loss in earnings for people who used to work in Construction – cannot be estimated from this source
Composition effects – difficult to estimate without high burden on respondent enterprises – would require very detailed occupation, experience etc. information
Trends not unidirectional – e.g. reduction occur in some periods and not others

11. Supplementary analysis
Looked at wage bill changes among enterprises who were available in both periods
Enterprises cut/increase wage bill in 3 ways
Employment
Paid hours
Hourly earnings
Used data for Q and Q – period of greatest employment loss
Showed that 65% of all enterprises cut their wage bill by more than 2%
68% small enterprises, 57% large enterprises

12. Supplementary analysis from EHECS
Percentage of enterprises reducing their wage bill and components of the wage bill, by components changed, Quarter to Quarter
Employment
Average Hourly Earnings
Average Hours
54%
12%
20%
13% 9% 4% 4% 3%
37%
29%

13. Supplementary analysis
Many enterprises cut more than one of the components
Employment most frequent (more than half of enterprises cut their wage bill with an employment reduction as part of it)
Paid hours next most frequent (37%)
Hourly earnings least frequent (29%) and hourly earnings (standardised actually increased 1% over the period)
Varied greatly across sectors
Compositional effect also looked at with available information – no significant compositional effect identified