S.I. No. 314 of 2008

STATISTICS (LABOUR COSTS SURVEYS) ORDER 2008

Notice of the making of this Statutory Instrument was published in

“Iris Oifigiúil” of 8th August, 2008.

I, BRIAN COWEN, Taoiseach, in exercise of the powers conferred on me by section 25(1) of the Statistics Act 1993 (No. 21 of 1993) and for the purpose of giving full effect to Council Regulation (EC) No. 530/1999 of 9 March 1999 ¹ , Commission Regulation (EC) No. 1726/1999 of 27 July 1999 ² , Commission Regulation (EC) No. 452/2000 of 28 February 2000 ³ , Regulation (EC) No. 450/2003 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 February 2003 ⁴ , Commission Regulation (EC) No. 1216/2003 of 7 July 2003 ⁵ and Commission Regulation (EC) No. 1737/2005 of 21 October 2005 ⁶ , hereby order as follows:

1. This Order may be cited as the Statistics (Labour Costs Surveys) Order 2008.

2. In this Order-

“Act” means Statistics Act 1993 (No. 21 of 1993);

“survey” means a survey, known as the Earnings, Hours and Employment Costs Survey (EHECS), to be carried out, subject to section 25(2)(b) of the Act, for every quarter commencing 1 January, 1 April, 1 July and 1 October, to be undertaken by the Office as nearly as possible at intervals of 3 months during the period from 1 April 2008 to 31 March 2013, in relation to the economic activities of each of the undertakings to which this Order applies in respect of the period to which the relevant survey undertaken in accordance with this Order applies.

3. This Order applies to undertakings which are classified for statistical purposes under Sections B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R and S of NACE Rev. 2 (set out in the Annex to Regulation (EC) No. 1893/2006 ⁷ of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 December 2006 establishing the statistical classification of economic activities NACE Revision 2 and amending Council Regulation (EEC) No. 3037/90 ⁸ as well as certain EC Regulations on specific statistical domains) which employ one or more persons, which are engaged in economic activities at any time during a period in respect of which a survey is undertaken.

4. Information, the general nature of which is specified in the Schedule, is prescribed as information required to be provided, within the period specified by the Director General, by each undertaking to which this Order applies, to the Office for the purpose of each of the surveys, as required by the forms and questionnaires referred to in Article 5(a).

5. An undertaking required by this Order to provide information to the Office shall provide such information-

(a) by the completion of forms and questionnaires prepared by the Director General in accordance with section 23 of the Act, and

(b) where directions under section 26 of the Act have been given to the undertaking, in accordance with those directions.

6. An undertaking required by this Order to provide information to the Office shall be deemed to comply with that requirement where, with the consent of the Director General, the information is provided by electronic means in a format or manner approved by the Director General.

SCHEDULE

Article 4.

Details (with such detailed breakdown as required by the forms and questionnaires referred to in Regulation 5) in respect of the period to which the survey concerned relates, as regards the undertaking concerned, of the total amount of employer’s liability insurance paid during the period, and, divided into three different occupational categories, namely “Managers, Professionals & Associate Professionals”, “Clerical, Sales & Service Workers” and “Production, Transport Workers, Craft & Tradespersons, Other Manual Workers”, of the-

(a) number of persons employed on the first and last days of the period and hired during the period, separately identifying totals for full-time employees, part-time employees and apprentices and trainees,

(b) number of other persons engaged in the business during the period,

(c) number of job vacancies as at the last working day of the period,

(d) number of employees who, at the end of the period, are remunerated at an hourly rate of pay equal to the national minimum hourly rate of pay,

(e) total cost to employer of wages and salaries and other forms of compensation and benefits incurred during the period to persons employed, broken down into regular, irregular and overtime payments and separately identifying totals for full-time employees, part-time employees and apprentices and trainees,

(f) total paid hours (both contracted and overtime) and paid hours not worked for the period (broken down into annual leave and bank holidays, maternity leave, sick leave and other leave) in each case separately identifying totals for full-time employees, part-time employees and apprentices and trainees,

(g) cost to the undertaking of pension contributions made during the period on behalf of employees,

(h) total cost to employer of social security contributions incurred during the period (broken down into employers PRSI, Income continuance insurance, redundancy payments and other employee-related payments) respectively, for full-time and part-time employees and for apprentices and trainees,

(i) total cost to employer of other forms of compensation and benefits (broken down into the private use of company cars, stock options and share purchase schemes, voluntary sickness insurance, staff housing and other free or subsidised benefits) which, during the period, are paid or given to or for the benefit of full-time and part-time employees,

(j) training costs (excluding apprentice and trainees wages and salaries) incurred during the period,

(k) other costs and expenses incurred during the period by reason of the employment or use of labour, and

(l) total amount received during the period of subsidies towards or refunds of the cost of direct remuneration paid to employees, including apprentices and trainees.

GIVEN under my Official seal,

29 July 2008

BRIAN COWEN.

Taoiseach.

EXPLANATORY NOTE

(This note is not part of the Instrument and does not purport to be a legal interpretation.)

This Order provides a statutory basis for collecting short term structural statistics on earnings and labour costs as specified in Council Regulation (EC) No. 530/1999 and Council Regulation (EC) No. 450/2003 which will contribute to the availability of comparable, reliable and comprehensive data at European level.

These labour costs are important for understanding the inflationary process and the dynamics of the labour market as well as monitoring changes in labour costs across the European Community.

The order will allow for the possibility of legal action against non-respondents. This would greatly increase our response rates and improve the overall quality of our statistical output at all levels.

1 OJ No. L63, 12.3.1999, p. 6.

2 OJ No. L203, 3.8.1999, p. 28.

3 OJ No. L55, 29.2.2000, p.53.

4 OJ No. L69, 13.3.2003, p.1.

5 OJ No. L169, 8.7.2003, p.37.

6 OJ No. L279, 22.10.2005, p.11.

7 OJ No. L393, 30.12.2006, p.1.

8 OJ No. L293, 24.10.1990, p.1.