ESENER-PSR 2009 - European Agency for Safety and Health at Work

2. The address registers
2.1. Types of address-registers
In a preliminary study for the first establishment survey of the European Foundation for the
Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (ESWT 2004), Hermann Groß stated that “(…)
it is recommendable to take the most recent and most comprehensive directory of all
establishments with 1 or more employees in the countries under investigation" (Groß 2003, p.
13).
This at the first glance simple and obvious demand is not as easy to fulfil as it might seem. In
most countries there is absolutely no choice between different registers of establishments and
in several countries there is no establishment register available at all. Nevertheless, topicality
and comprehensiveness are important criteria of judging the quality of an address source.
Topicality
Topicality was not a real problem with any of the registers used for the ESENER with certain
limitations regarding the registers used for Turkey. Most of the registers used for the ESENER
2009 claim to be updated at least once a year, many even quarterly or weekly. Experiences
have however shown that the scope and quality of the updates varies widely: While some
registers are up-dated by regularly contacting all listed establishments - e.g. via telephone
interviews or via mail-questionnaires – in other cases up-dates are made for those units only
which report changes on their own initiative. In some registers claiming to be updated on a
regular basis, firms which are dissolved or go bankrupt are not de-registered at all. Also,
significant increases or decreases of the workforce are often not reported to the institution
responsible for maintaining the address-register. The share of quality neutral non responses
(e.g. establishments where the indicated telephone number was wrong or inactive) and the
deviations between the number of employees as indicated in the address source and the
number of employees according to the survey results are important measures for judging on
the topicality of an address source.
Comprehensiveness of sector coverage
With regard to comprehensiveness, a judgement of the different sources is quite difficult. The
total number of entries e.g. is only a very weak indicator for the completeness of an addressregister
as long as the register does not embark all establishments in the country. If the latter
is not the case, entries might be concentrated on specific types of establishments. For
example there might be a good coverage of large establishments, but an only poor coverage
of the smaller ones (or vice versa). Or registers might be complete for certain sectors of
activity but include only very few addresses of others. Other possible criteria for inclusion or
exclusion of establishments can be their legal status, their geographical location within the
country, the amount of turnover, the fact whether they are paying taxes to the national tax
office or whether or not they are enrolled in the trade-register.
It is not essential for a survey of this kind that an address-register has a complete listing of all
existing addresses of establishments (with 10 or more employees) – although this of course
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