EMPLOYMENT IN THE MARKET ECONOMY IN ... - Eurostat - Europa

Chapter 3 — Labour costs and value-added
29 Unit labour costs in market services, 2001
120
110
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
% of value-added
Distributive trades (G)
Hotels and restaurants (H)
Transport, communications (I)
Business services (K)
LV MT IE RO EE UK SK CY LT DE LU HU BG EU15 NL DK ES AT FI IT BE FR PT SE CZ
120
110
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
EL, PL, SI: n.a. ; DE, IE: 2000; DK: NACE G 1999, NACE H to K 2000. Business services exclude real estate and renting
Source: Eurostat, SBS
were less than 60% of value-added in all of the countries
for which there are data.
Within market services, the share of labour costs in
value-added in both the EU15 and the new Member
States was relatively high in hotels and restaurants and
business services once real estate and rental activities
are excluded. It was lowest in transport and communications
(Graph 29).
the enlarged EU. The share of value-added going to capital
rather than labour, therefore, tends to be larger in the
sectors where investment is highest — in real estate and
rental activities in particular, but also in post and
telecommunications (Graph 30).
Within business services, high unit labour costs were high
in computer and related activities (over 80%) and research
and development. In the latter, this partly reflects a
relatively high level of public sector involvement (and so
an absence of profits) and partly the fact that R&D is an
activity which feeds into production rather than necessarily
generating income independently. In computer and related
activities, labour costs amounts to around 80% or
more in most EU15 countries, but were in most cases
much lower in the new Member States.
In transport and communications, unit labour costs were
highest in air transport and were over 100% in Austria and
Sweden and were exactly 100% in France, while in Hungary
and Lithuania, they were close to 200%. In all these
countries, therefore, subsidies were necessary in order to
maintain operations (Table 27).
30 Correlation between unit labour costs and
investment per person employed in the EU market
services, 2001
120
100
80
60
40
Unit labour costs (EUR)
Travel
agencies
(63)
Research+development (73)
Post , telecom. (64)
y = -0.54x + 78.3
R2 = 0.55
Rental activities (71)
120
100
80
60
40
Investment per person employed in market services was
higher than in manufacturing in most countries. There is
evidence of an inverse relationship between investment
per worker and unit labour costs across service sectors in
20
0
Real estate activities (70)
0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
Investment per person employed (EUR)
EU covers all existing and new Member States except EL, PL and SI
Source: Eurostat, SBS
20
56