Methodological notes and background information

EU-wide harmonised structural data on gross earnings, hours paid and annual days of paid holiday leave are collected every four years in the European Structure of Earnings Survey under Council Regulation (EC) No 530/1999 and Commission Regulation (EC) No 1916/2000. The latest refer to the year 2002, encompassing information from more than 7.9 Mio employees in 28 countries. The data for Germany refer to the year 2001. The national surveys were generally conducted on the basis of a two-stage random sampling approach of enterprises or local units (first stage) and employees (second stage).

Countries participating in the SES 2002 and their official codes Codes for economic activities and coverage of the survey

Countries participating in the SES 2002 and their official codes

EU Member States (all except Malta) BE Belgium CZ Czech Republic DK Denmark DE Germany EE Estonia EL Greece ES Spain FR France IE Ireland IT Italy CY Cyprus LV Latvia LT Lithuania LU Luxembourg HU Hungary NL Netherlands AT Austria PL Poland PT Portugal SI Slovenia SK Slovakia FI Finland SE Sweden UK United Kingdom Acceding Countries BG Bulgaria RO Romania Countries of the European Economic Area (EEA) IC Iceland NO Norway

The euro-zone (EZ) is defined by 12 countries (EU-15, except Denmark, Sweden and the United Kingdom).

Codes for economic activities and coverage of the survey

NACE is the French acronym for "nomenclature générale des activitiés économiques" and denotes the general industrial classification of economic activities within the European Community. The current version (NACE, Rev. 1.1) uses the following codes:

Economic activity C Mining and quarrying D Manufacturing E Electricity, gas, water supply F Construction G Wholesale and retail trade, repair of motor vehicles, personal and household goods H Hotels and restaurants I Transport, storage, communication J Financial intermediation K Real estate, renting, business activities L Public administration and defense; compulsory social security M Education N Health and social work O Other community, social and personal service activities C-F Industry G-K Services C-K Industry and services

For the SES 2002, the Member States were obliged to cover NACE sections C to K. Sections L to O were optional. Nine countries provided data for all optional NACE sections. These data are not covered by this publication. Iceland only covered the NACE sections D, F and G. Hence, the NACE aggregates C-F, G-K and C-K were not available for Iceland. For this reason, Iceland were excluded in all tables or graphs containing NACE aggregates.

The SES 2002 data refer to enterprises with at least 10 employees. The inclusion of small enterprises was optional and 14 countries made use of this option. The national averages on earnings for all economic activities presented in this publication include all sizes of enterprises for which data are available.