Accuracy and reliability

Overall accuracy

The component relating to earnings and wages accounts for about 96 pct. of total labour costs. Consequently, overall accuracy depends primarily on the accuracy of this component. Overall accuracy is described in the quality declaration regarding structure of earnings. The overall accuracy of other labour costs is considered to be reasonably high. The high accuracy of other labour costs stems from the fact that many of the costs involved are forced by law and often relate to the branch of economic activity or size group of the enterprise. This means that there is a great possibility to control the transmitted data. This strengthens the accuracy of the data. Furthermore, it is also the impression that the accuracy of the transmitted data is increasingly improved as enterprises are becoming familiar with the content of the survey,

Sampling error

The sample survey is a source of uncertainty. The sample survey used for other labour costs is created on the basis of extracts from the Central Business Register of business enterprises with more than nine employees working full-time. The sample is stratified in accordance with the size of the enterprises and economic activity. In 2023 the sample consisted of 3640 enterprises. 1561 of these received a questionnaire from Statistics Denmark, which corresponds to about 43 pct of the sample. 55 pct. of the questionnaires were mailed by the Danish Employers' Confederation, while the remaining 2 pct. were mailed by Finance Denmark and Insurance and Pension. Approx. 98 pct. of the mailed questionnaires were incorporated in the production of statistics. The questionnaires that were not used in compiling the statistics were omitted for different reasons, e.g. the business enterprises discontinued their activities during 2023, or the number of employees decreased to less than ten during the year.

There exists no overall assessment of the uncertainty caused by sampling errors.

Non-sampling error

Other uncertainty has not been estimated or assessed yet.

Quality management

Statistics Denmark follows the recommendations on organisation and management of quality given in the Code of Practice for European Statistics (CoP) and the implementation guidelines given in the Quality Assurance Framework of the European Statistical System (QAF). A Working Group on Quality and a central quality assurance function have been established to continuously carry through control of products and processes.

Quality assurance

Statistics Denmark follows the principles in the Code of Practice for European Statistics (CoP) and uses the Quality Assurance Framework of the European Statistical System (QAF) for the implementation of the principles. This involves continuous decentralized and central control of products and processes based on documentation following international standards. The central quality assurance function reports to the Working Group on Quality. Reports include suggestions for improvement that are assessed, decided and subsequently implemented.

Quality assessment

The quality of the statistics is considered to be high. Some of the fundamental information in other costs rest upon voluntary agreements, and as a consequence are therefore somewhat difficult to assess the validity of. Still, the impact these information have on the total labour costs are minimal, and the uncertainty caused by these is considered to be limited. A potential source of error is the lack of response from the business enterprises. However, the response rate for other labour costs is close to 100 per cent.

Data revision - policy

Statistics Denmark revises published figures in accordance with the Revision Policy for Statistics Denmark. The common procedures and principles of the Revision Policy are for some statistics supplemented by a specific revision practice.

Data revision practice

Only final figures are published.