Working Life Survey
Enterprises by group of enterprises and by existence of collective agreement, employees with temporary/fixed-date contract etc. Employers’ evaluation of the importance to combine work and family life of employees by group of enterprises etc. Employees by group of employees and by satisfaction with work, satisfaction with possibilities to gain new skills and knowledge at work etc. | |
Not used. | |
Survey covers enterprises, NGOs, state and local government agencies and employed persons of those institutions/enterprises. | |
Authorisation agreement – a contract under which one person (the mandatary) undertakes to provide services to another person (the mandator), i.e. to perform the mandate, and the mandator undertakes to pay remuneration to the mandatary for the work. Collective agreement – a voluntary agreement between employees, federation or union of employees and employers, association or federation of employers. This includes voluntary agreements between employees and public authorities or local authorities, which govern employment relations between employers and employees. Confidential person – a representative of employees who works for the enterprise or institution concerned and is elected by the employees or trade union members of the enterprise or institution. Contract for services – a written contract under which the employee undertakes to carry out a particular job at some time. A person with a contract for services (the contractor) undertakes to manufacture or modify a thing or to achieve any other agreed result by providing a service (work), and the other person (the customer) undertakes to pay remuneration for the work. Employees, or persons employed – persons who work in enterprises/institutions and receive remuneration for the work done either as an employee or an entrepreneur. Employee health promotion activities – this covers recreational sport, health-improving procedures, vaccinations, health training, health events provided or financed by the enterprise/institution. As of 2021, activities promoting mental health are also included here. Employment contract – an agreement between an employee and an employer, according to which the employee undertakes to perform work for the employer in subordination to the management and control of the employer, while the employer undertakes to pay the employee remuneration for the work and to guarantee working conditions prescribed by the agreement of the parties, collective agreement, law or administrative act. Enterprise – enterprises include private companies, non-profit associations and foundations, and government and local government institutions. Part-time employment – working a part-time day, week or month. In general, the full-time standard is 40 hours per week. Some occupations have a full-time standard of less than 40 hours per week. Primary sector – agriculture, hunting, forestry, and fishing. Secondary sector – mining; manufacturing; electricity, gas and water supply; and construction. Shift work – regular work organisation where the enterprise operates outside normal working hours (8:00am-05:00pm). Shift work is organised so that at the beginning of the shift, work is taken over from the previous shift and at the end of the shift, work is handed over to the next shift. Shift work involves working early in the morning, at night or on weekends, and holidays do not always coincide with weekends and normal holidays. If the start and end time of work are constant, such as when working permanent night shifts, it is not considered shift work. Tertiary sector – trade, services, etc. Total working time calculation – usually used in the case of people who work shifts and whose working week length varies. In the case of total working time calculation, the employer makes sure that during a longer reference period the employee’s total working time would not exceed the agreed working time standard or the amount of overtime work permitted by law and agreed with the employee. In this case, an employee may work long days, but as he/she does not work or works less in the following days, the total time he/she works does not exceed the agreed working time. Statistical Profile – the database of economically active units (companies, sole proprietors, institutions, non-profit associations). Statistics Estonia has been using this database as the population for all economic statistics since 1994. Working during the day, evening and night – working between 6:00am-6:00pm, 6:00pm-10:00pm and 10:00pm-6:00am. | |
Enterprise Employee | |
Economically active enterprises with at least 5 employees; and employees of these enterprises FRAME List of active enterprises generated from the Business Register for Statistical Purposes. List of employees of enterprises received from the Estonian Tax and Customs Board. | |
Estonia as a whole | |
2009, 2015, 2021 | |
Not applicable. |
The dissemination of data collected for the purpose of producing official statistics is guided by the requirements provided for in § 32, § 34, § 35, § 38 of the Official Statistics Act. | |
The treatment of confidential data is regulated by the Procedure for Protection of Data Collected and Processed by Statistics Estonia. |
Notifications about the dissemination of statistics are published in the release calendar, which is available on the website. Every year on 1 October, the release times of the statistical database, news releases, main indicators by IMF SDDS and publications for the following year are announced in the release calendar (in the case of publications – the release month). | |
All users have been granted equal access to official statistics: dissemination dates of official statistics are announced in advance and no user category (incl. Eurostat, state authorities and mass media) is provided access to official statistics before other users. Official statistics are first published in the statistical database. If there is also a news release, it is published simultaneously with data in the statistical database. Official statistics are available on the website at 8:00 a.m. on the date announced in the release calendar. |
Not published. | |
Not published. | |
Data are published in the statistical database at https://andmed.stat.ee/en/stat under the subject areas “Social life / Worklife quality / Working time”, “Social life / Worklife quality / Employers' and employees' satisfaction”, “Social life / Worklife quality / Work organisation” and “Social life / Worklife quality / Occupational health” in all tables. | |
The dissemination of data collected for the purpose of producing official statistics is guided by the requirements provided for in § 33, § 34, § 35, § 36, § 38 of the Official Statistics Act. Access to microdata and anonymisation of microdata are regulated by Statistics Estonia’s procedure for dissemination of confidential data for scientific purposes. | |
Not used | |
Estonian Work Life Survey 2009, 2015. Methodology (in Estonian) | |
Data on the quality of the population, sample and respondents are published in the Statistical Database. |
To assure the quality of processes and products, Statistics Estonia applies the EFQM Excellence Model, the European Statistics Code of Practice and the Quality Assurance Framework of the European Statistical System (ESS QAF). Statistics Estonia is also guided by the requirements in § 7. “Principles and quality criteria of producing official statistics” of the Official Statistics Act. | |
Statistics Estonia performs all statistical activities according to an international model (Generic Statistical Business Process Model – GSBPM). According to the GSBPM, the final phase of statistical activities is overall evaluation using information gathered in each phase or sub-process; this information can take many forms, including feedback from users, process metadata, system metrics and suggestions from employees. This information is used to prepare the evaluation report which outlines all the quality problems related to the specific statistical activity and serves as input for improvement actions. |
Ministry of Social Affairs | |
Since 1996, Statistics Estonia has conducted reputation and user satisfaction surveys. All results are available on the website of Statistics Estonia in the section User surveys. | |
In compliance with the rules (regulations). |
The accuracy of source data is monitored by assessing the methodological soundness of data sources and the adherence to the methodological recommendations. The type of survey and the data collection methods ensure sufficient coverage and timeliness. | |
Not applicable | |
Statistics Estonia try to reduce non-sampling errors through continuous methodological improvements and survey process improvements such as computer assisted data collection, which can help avoiding coding and typing errors. |
The data revision policy and notification of corrections are described in the section Principles of dissemination of official statistics of the website of Statistics Estonia. | |
Not applicable. |
SURVEY DATA The sample includes 1,600 institutions/enterprises and 8,000 persons. Enterprises are selected by stratified sample random sampling by economic activity, number of employees and legal type. The sample of employees is based on the participation of employers in the Working Life Survey. ADMINISTRATIVE DATA Data on the number, sex, age and citizenship of employees are received from the Estonian Tax and Customs Board. Data on percentage of loss of capacity for work and on degree of disability are received from the Social Insurance Board. DATA FROM OTHER STATISTICAL ACTIVITIES Data from the statistical activity 20300 „Annual financial statistics of enterprises” on income, expenditure, fixed assets, labour costs, expenditure on wages and salaries, and training costs of the non-profit sector are used. | |
Over six years | |
The survey of enterprises is carried out by web-based survey method (CAWI – Computer Assisted Web Interviewing). The survey of employees is carried out first by web-based survey method (CAWI). The employees who did not complete a web-based survey will be interviewed face-to-face using a laptop (CATI – Telephone Assisted Personal Interviewing) (up to 2015 CAPI – Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing). In 2007, the Ministry of Social Affairs, in cooperation with Statistics Estonia, started to develop a survey on aspects of working life. The first Working Life Survey was conducted in 2009 (WLS 2009), and the second in 2015 (WLS 2015). In 2009, the manager of the enterprise/institution provided data in the electronic environment eSTAT. The form could also be printed out and sent to Statistics Estonia by post or fax. The employee survey interviews were conducted in person (face-to-face interview). The survey of enterprises took place from April to June 2009 and the employee survey from September to December of the same year. In the sample of the WLS 2009 enterprise survey there were 1,700 companies, of which 1,332 (78%) submitted a completed questionnaire. The employee survey sample consisted of 7,463 persons, of whom 4,609 (62%) were interviewed. In 2015, it was possible to complete both the enterprise and employee survey questionnaires online in the data collection system of the Survey Fieldwork Information System (VVIS). A face-to-face interview was conducted with employees who did not want to fill out the questionnaire online. The survey of enterprises took place in January and February 2015, and the employee survey took place from March to June. There were 1,600 enterprises in the sample of TEU 2015 enterprise survey, of which 848 (53%) responded. The sample of the employee survey was 8,193 persons, of whom 4,778 (58%) responded. In the first phase, the manager or deputy manager of the enterprise/institution was interviewed, while in the second phase, other employees of the enterprise/institution were involved. Data are collected with the official statistics annual questionnaires “Working life survey of enterprises 2021. year” and “Working life survey of employees 2021. year” (in Estonian). The previous questionnaires are “Working life survey of enterprises 2015. year” (in Estonian) and “Working life survey of employees 2015. year” (in Estonian). | |
Arithmetic and qualitative controls are used in the validation process, including comparison with other data. Before data dissemination, several checks on the internal coherence of the data are carried out. | |
In the case of missing or unreliable data, estimate imputation based on established regulations will be used. Variables and statistical units which were not collected but which are necessary for producing the output are calculated or linked with registers. New variables are calculated by applying arithmetic conversion to already existing variables. This may be done repeatedly, the derived variable may, in turn, be based on previously derived new variables. Weights are calculated for statistical units and the data collected by a sample survey are expanded to the whole population. The Working Life Survey (WLS) is carried out in two phases, therefore, the weights are also calculated separately for each phase: at first for enterprises/institutions and then for employees. The calculation consists of the following steps: calculation of design weights, compensation of loss, calibration. Microdata are aggregated to the level necessary for analysis. This includes aggregation of the data according to the classification and calculating various statistical measures, e.g. average, median, dispersion, etc. The collected data are converted into statistical output. This includes calculating additional indicators. The frame for WLS 2009 enterprises/institutions was drawn in November 2008, but the first phase of the survey took place in the second quarter of 2009. In order to take into account the rapid changes in the labour market caused by the economic crisis that had started, enterprise/institution weights were calibrated with data of the survey "Wages and salaries" for the first quarter of 2009. No calibration was made when calculating the WLS 2015 enterprise/institution weights, as the frame was up-to-date. In order to ensure comparability of WLS 2009 and WLS 2015 data, the weights of WLS 2009 enterprises/institutions were adjusted on the basis of the statistical profile data for 2009. The weights of WLS 2009 employees were calibrated using the Estonian Labour Force Survey (ELFS) data for the fourth quarter of 2009 and for WLS 2015, ELFS data for the second quarter of 2015 were used. Since the publication of the WLS 2009 data, ELFS data have been corrected using the population figures recalculated on the basis of the 2011 Population and Housing Census and registry data. In order to ensure comparability between WLS 2009 and WLS 2015 employee data, the weights of WLS 2009 employees were adjusted on the basis of the adjusted enterprise/institution weights and ELFS 2009 adjusted data for the fourth quarter of 2009. The revised WLS 2009 data were published together with WLS 2015 data on 19 November 2015. As of 2021, data from the employment register of the Estonian Tax and Customs Board is also used when compiling data. The population data obtained from the expansion of the sample are all estimates of actual parameters. Estimates based on fewer than 20 persons or enterprises have not been published (marked in tables as ".."), as they are not reliable. Due to rounding, the result of adding numbers is not always equal to the total indicator. The difference can be the last few digits. | |
Not applicable. |