Relevance
Business
Demography statistics describe the characteristics and demography of the
business population. A number of
business populations are considered for the scope of business demography. These are the population of active
enterprises, population of enterprise births, population of enterprise
survivals up to five years, and population of enterprise deaths. For each of these populations, variables on
number of enterprises, number of employees, and number of persons employed are
reported. Such data is broken down by
NACE, headcount groups and type of legal organisation. Data for the Business Demography is required
under European Framework Regulation (EC) No. 295/2008.
Methodological
description
Data
for Business Demography is compiled from the Business Register maintained by
the NSO. Data for each population is
selected from this register according to the criteria specified in the Business
Register recommendation manual. NACE Rev.
2 is used for the NACE classification. The
reported variables are expressed in units.
Business Demography data is compiled on a yearly basis.
Accuracy and
reliability of data
Information
on the accuracy and reliability of data can be viewed in a dedicated ESMS
report available on the NSO’s metadata website.
Prior to transmission, data is also checked for consistency by means of
Eurostat’s EDIT tool.
Timeliness and
punctuality of data
Data
for the Business Demography for reference year N is transmitted to Eurostat in two
phases and is based on the concept of ‘active population of enterprises’. The first set of series are transmitted by
the end of June of year N+2 (18 months from the end of the reference year)
while the second set of series are transmitted by the end of August of year N+2
(20 months from the end of the reference year), so as to satisfy the
requirements of the regulation mentioned above.
The data transmitted at the end of June refers to all kinds of
enterprises while the data transmitted at the end of August relates only to the
employer enterprises, meaning that self- employed without employees are
excluded.
The Business Demography News
Release is published on a yearly basis on the NSO’s website based on all the
registered legal units, normally within 5 months after the end of the reference
period. This is published on the pre-established date as
scheduled in the Advance Release Calendar which is available on
the NSO’s website.
Accessibility and
clarity of data
Business
Demography data can be accessed from Eurostat’s database. An ESMS metadata report is produced every
year and sent to Eurostat by the end of March of year N+3 (27 months from the
end of the reference year). The ESMS
metadata report is also updated yearly and published on the NSO website.
Coherence and
comparability/consistency of data
Business
Demography data has been compiled as from reference year 2010. A different methodological approach was
adopted for reference year 2014. This
data is thus not comparable to that of previous reference years. However, data for reference year 2014 is
comparable to that of other countries since common methodologies are used.
Metadata