European Company Survey 2009

Summary

This survey focuses on working time flexibility in the work place and how employees communicate/interact with the administrators in their offices. Researchers can look at the differences in how flexibility measures are implemented in the work place. The differences in the social dialogues in the different work places can also be observed. Furthermore, because almost all sectors of activity are included - expect for Agricultural, Forestry and Fishing – the survey allows for comparison between sectors. Finally, since the ECS 2013 data collection has already started, it will be soon possible to make comparative analyses.

Type of data

Data Source
Survey

Type of Study
Crosssection regular

Data gathering method
Telephone

Access to data

Conditions of access
The data is free and available on the UK Data Service website.

Type of available data (e.g. anonymised microdata, aggregated tables, etc.)
Microdata, questionnaires

Formats available
STATA, SPSS and TAB

Coverage

Coverage Years of collection, reference years, and sample sizes
Data collected in early 2009 The sample size was 27,160 establishments that had 10 employees or more . Participating countries were: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, Croatia, Macedonia and Turkey (EU-27, Croatia, Macedonia and Turkey).

First year of collection
The first European Company Survey was conducted in 2004, but the survey then was known as the “Working time and work-life balance in European companies”

Stratification if applicable
“The sampling for the ECS was done on the basis of a matrix, where the universe in each country was divided into 10 cells defined by five size classes and two main sectors of activity – the ‘Industries’ sector covering NACE Rev.1.1 codes C to F, and the ‘Services’ sector covering NACE codes G to O.” Source: http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/pubdocs/2010/05/en/1/EF1005EN.pdf, pg. 90

Base used for sampling

Geographical coverage and breakdowns
N/A

Age range
N/A

Statistical representativeness
Special group, please specify

Coverage of main and cross-cutting topics
This second establishment survey by Eurofound covers the main topic of work and productivity. More specifically, it examined flexibility measures that had been established in the work place. This includes working time flexibility (part-time work, overtime work, working time account systems), the use of non-permanent employment contracts, and wage flexibility. It also looked at company performance. Like the first survey, both human resource managers and employee representatives were interviewed when possible. This allowed data to be collected on what the social dialogue is like in the work place between administrators and employees.

Linkage

Standardisation
Use of NACE to code the different sectors

Possibility of linkage among databases

Data quality

Entry errors if applicable
Very limited information provided. Recommendations for future waves are made with regard to looking at data entry error rate and percentage of data that had to be completely re-entered.

Breaks
The survey was carried out by the TNS Infratest Sozialforschung, which worked with national fieldwork institutes.

Consistency of terminology or coding used during collection
Consistent terminology and coding was used.

Governance

Contact information

European Foundation for the Improvement of Living & Working Conditions
Wyattville Rd.
Dublin 18, Loughlinstown Ireland Phone: (+353-1) 20431 00
Email: postmaster(at)eurofound.europa.eu
Url: http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/surveys/ecs/index.htm

Timeliness, transparency
Data collected from January 27,2009 till May 5, 2009, and it was published in March 2010