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Quality description: Job vacancy survey
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1. Relevance of statistical information
2. Methodological description of the survey
3. Correctness and accuracy of data
4. Timeliness and promptness of published data
5. Accessibility and transparency/clarity of data
6. Comparability of statistics
7. Coherence and consistency/uniformity
1. Relevance of statistical information
The Job Vacancy Survey provides information on the development and changes on the labour market
from the perspective of the employer. For the statistics, establishments selected for the sample are
asked about the number of job vacancies during a certain time period. The reference period is the first
calendar day of the last month of each quarter (1 March, 1 June, 1 September, 1 December). As the
reference period remains the same from one year to another, a situation report on job vacancies in every
quarter is created based on the responses given by employers.
A job vacancy can be a completely new job or an already existing job without a holder. By definition,
the position must be open for application by those outside the establishment, and the employer must
have been active in finding a suitable employee. Active measures are such as reporting a job vacancy to
the labour exchange office, other advertisement channels, and use of contact networks. Job vacancies
also include jobs opening in near future reported by employers as open.
Job vacancies do not include jobs that are filled by an unpaid trainee or an outside subcontractor or
contractor. Job vacancies are not jobs that are filled by an employee returning from paid or unpaid
leave. Short-term replacements of less than one month in duration are not included in vacancies either.
The data collection includes some 2,500 different establishments in every quarter. Based on the data
collection, a picture is formed of job vacancies in the whole of Finland. Data on the number of
personnel, form of ownership, the number of job vacancies and their qualitative features, that is,
whether they are part-time, fixed-term and hard-to-fill, are collected from the establishments. The
survey is also concerned with how many of the job vacancies are without a holder and how many of the
jobs without a holder are meant to be filled later.
The initiative for the survey came from the Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion Department of
the European Commission and from the European Central Bank. The basis for the survey was the need
for reliable, regular, up-to-date and comparable data from member states on the number and structure of
job openings. The statistics are based on Regulation (EC) No 453/2008 of the European Parliament and
of the Council.
2. Methodological description of the survey
The population of the survey comprises all private or public sector establishments located in Finland
employing paid employees representing at least one staff-year. An establishment is a unit that is
located in one place, and mainly produces one type of goods or services. The branches of industry that
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are represented do not include activities of households as employers, activities of extraterritorial
organisations and bodies, and defence.
The sampling frame used for the survey is the Register of Enterprises and Establishments maintained
by Statistics Finland, which contains some 150,000 active establishments in which the number of wage
and salary earners measured in staff-years is at least one.
Since 2013 the survey has been based on the new sampling design. An annual sample is selected from
the sampling frame with systematic random sampling by strata. The size category of the establishment
based on its number of personnel (1 to 4, 5 to 9, 10 to 49, at least 50) and the industry group of the
establishment (A, B-E, F, G-I, J, K-L, M-N, O-Q, R-S) are used as strata. In all, some 10,000
establishments are selected for the annual sample from the sampling frame so that they are divided into
size categories with fixed proportions (2,000, 3,000, 3,000, 2,000) and they represent the division of the
industry strata of the sample frame within their size category. The sampling frame has been grouped
based on the location of the establishment so the annual sample is regionally self-weighting. The annual
sample is divided into quarterly samples based on random numbers. One-half of the establishments in
the quarterly sample are replaced by new ones every year. An individual establishment is included in
the survey independent of the size category at most in two consecutive years and always in the same
quarter.
The data collection is conducted by the CATI centre that belongs to Statistics Finland's Data Collection
Department. Since the first quarter of 2006, the respondents have also been able to answer the inquiry
with a web questionnaire. Thirty-two per cent of all interviews were conducted through the web
questionnaire in 2014. In 2014, the net response rate for data collections was 87 per cent.
In each establishment, the person with best knowledge about recruitment there is sought to answer the
survey. In establishments with a lower number of personnel, the respondent is usually the entrepreneur
or the director. In the largest establishments, personnel administration is usually contacted. On average,
it takes five to ten minutes to reply to the inquiry but dispersion is large due to the differences in
industry and size category. In connection with the data collection for the Job Vacancy Survey, data for
the Ministry of Employment and the Economy's survey on employment services are also collected.
These data are used for developing the activity of labour administration and surveying recruitment
problems.
The collected data are weighted by stratum to correspond with the number of establishments in the
frame. The estimates thus formed describe the number of job vacancies in the whole of Finland in each
reference period. In addition to estimates that describe the situation in the entire country, results based
on the size category, form of ownership, major region and industry are also compiled.
3. Correctness and accuracy of data
Due to the nature of the sample survey, the estimates always include sampling errors caused by the
sampling design. The size of this random variation is assessed with the help of standard errors of
estimates. With the help of the standard error, a confidence interval is calculated for the estimate, which
at certain probability includes the real value of the parameter to be estimated. The sample survey may
also include a bias independent of the sample design, which is caused, for example, by non-response or
over-coverage or under-coverage of the sampling frame. In 2014 the sampling frame contained less
establishments than previously, which may in part be due to increased undercoverage.
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During the editing and validation of response data, the observation values are checked and, if
necessary, corrected partially programmatically but also manually in order to generate the best quality
results. This way, the mutual logicality and compatibility of the received responses are ensured. The
effect of clearly deviating values on the results is limited by lowering the weight defined for the
response in question.
The results of the statistics are not seasonally adjusted. A considerable variation caused by the
reference period can be seen in the number of job vacancies, because of which it is not possible to
compare the figures of successive quarters to make conclusions about the trend of labour demand and
possible changes in it. To describe the trend of job vacancies, one should compare only estimates of the
corresponding quarters of successive years.
Table 1. An example of the accuracy of quarterly estimates: Job vacancies 2014, 1st quarter.
Length of the 95
Coefficient
Standard per cent
Estimate
of variation
error
confidence
(%)
interval
Total
Job vacancies
± 16,100
46,000
8,200
17.8
Private
enterprise
± 15,500
32,300
7,900
24.4
Form of
ownership
Municipality or joint municipal
Number of
personnel
Major region
(2012)
Industry (TOL
2008)
board
Central government
5,600
1,000
700
200
Organisation, association or fund
2,300
1,000
Other
5,000
1,800
1 to 4 persons
14,900
6,700
5 to 9 persons
5,200
1,000
10 to 49 persons
10,700
1,600
50 persons or more
15,200
4,300
Helsinki-Uusimaa
11,900
2,800
Southern Finland
8,500
1,800
Western Finland
12,800
3,800
Northern and Eastern Finland
12,200
6,500
200
200
B-E
9,300
4,100
F
1,200
700
G-I
9,300
1,800
J
1,500
500
K, L
1,200
500
M, N
12,200
6,500
O-Q
6,600
900
R, S
4,400
1,700
A
± 1,900
± 500
± 1,900
± 3,500
± 13,200
± 2,000
± 3,100
± 8,400
± 5,500
± 3,600
± 7,400
± 12,700
± 300
± 8,100
± 1,400
± 3,600
± 1,000
± 1,000
± 12,700
± 1,700
± 3,400
4. Timeliness and promptness of published data
The results of the Job Vacancy Survey are published quarterly some 45 days from the end of the
statistical reference quarter. No preliminary data are compiled, as the released data are final.
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17.5
32.5
41.5
36.1
45.2
19.6
15.0
28.3
23.7
21.8
29.6
53.2
83.7
44.4
56.0
19.5
32.0
41.7
53.2
13.5
39.3
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5. Accessibility and transparency/clarity of data
Data collected for statistical purposes must be kept confidential by virtue of Section 24 of the Act on
the Openness of Government Activities (621/1999). The response data are only used for statistical
purposes. The research data are protected in accordance with the data protection regulations of
Statistics Finland and responses given by individual establishments cannot be distinguished from the
statistical tables.
According to Section 13 of the Statistics Act (280/2004), Statistics Finland may, on the basis of a
separate application for licence to use statistical data, release data for scientific studies and statistical
surveys without data enabling direct identification. The Statistics Act prohibits the use of data collected
for statistical purposes in an investigation, surveillance, legal proceedings, administrative decisionmaking or other similar handling of a matter concerning the enterprise.
6. Comparability of statistics
The Job Vacancy Survey has been compiled since the first quarter of 2002 but the statistical data were
not public until 2003.
In 2006, data suppliers were given the option to respond to the survey by web questionnaire, in addition
to telephone interviews. Based on a methodological comparison made, the time series of the statistics
are comparable despite the revision in data collection.
From 2009 onwards, as recommended by Eurostat, an average annual estimate for job vacancies has
been calculated as an average of quarterly estimates. Annual averages in the Statfin database comply
with this calculation method. For the annual estimates of the Job Vacancy Survey prior to 2009, new
inflating coefficients have been calculated based on the combined data. The difference to the average of
the quarterly estimates has been one to five per cent.
The sample design of the Job Vacancy Survey was changed starting from the statistical reference year
2013 so that the target samples and strata better correspond with the information needs of data users.
The population of the survey remains the same regardless of the changes but the turnover of the sample
objects has been sped up and, in addition to the size category and location of the establishment, also its
industry, which is the key data required by data users is taken into account in the sampling. The
implemented reforms have a considerable effect on the results and they cannot be compared to
previously published data. Data based on the new design in the Job Vacancy Survey are published from
the first quarter of 2013 onwards. The previously produced time series are no longer updated.
7. Coherence and consistency/uniformity
In addition to Statistics Finland's sample survey, the Ministry of Employment and the Economy
publishes register data on the number of job vacancies by occupational group and ELY area. Due to
methodological, definition and production differences, the data published by the Ministry and Statistics
Finland are not, however, comparable. The main difference between the statistics is that the
Employment Service Statistics of the Ministry of Employment and the Economy only include those job
vacancies that employers have reported to employment offices. Statistics Finland's data, in turn, are
based on a sample survey and cover to some extent both job vacancies that have been reported to
employment offices and vacancies that have not been reported.
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The Job Vacancy Survey does not include all job vacancies that have been open due to the structure of
the Register of Enterprise and Establishments used as the basis of the sampling frame and owing to the
data collection method. The Job Vacancy Survey does not take into consideration job vacancies of
household employers nor of extraterritorial organisations or bodies. In addition, the criterion of one
staff-year set for the number of wage and salary earners and leaving out short-term replacements from
job vacancies at an establishment will lead to that part of the open jobs may be reported to employment
offices, even though they are excluded from the Job Vacancy Survey.
The Job Vacancy Survey is not trying to replace the Employment Service Statistics. These two different
data sources should be viewed as mutually complementary indicators for labour demand.
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