La Seguridad Social inicia la publicación de la estadística de horas efectivas trabajadas a partir de las cotizaciones de los trabajadores

The Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration publishes today for the first time the statistics of actual hours worked and hours quoted calculated from the data of social contributions paid by companies. These data will be published quarterly with a series that starts in January 2019, the first data available.

It is a statistic based on administrative data, prepared from the hours quoted and the labor relations per contributor informed to the Social Security. To calculate the effective hours worked, it is necessary to deduct the hours of workers in a situation of ERTE, temporary incapacity and receiving other benefits (provision of birth and care of the child, risk during natural lactation and risk during pregnancy)[1]. These corrected quoted hours of these suspensive situations or, in other words, hours actually worked, are 8.5% higher in the second quarter of 2023 than in the last quarter of 2019.

In addition, in order to avoid the volatility that exists between the different quarters and to be able to appreciate the medium-term evolution of the effective hours worked, the new report includes an index based on the moving average of 4 quarters. This index stood at 107.3 points in the second quarter of 2023, with 100 points corresponding to the last quarter 2019, so this new statistical report would appreciate an increase in the effective hours worked of 7.3% compared to the level prior to the pandemic.

Source: General Treasury of Social Security (TGSS).

As can be seen in the graph below, the evolution shown by this index largely coincides with the data corresponding to the Quarterly Labour Cost Survey (ETCL) of the INE, which shows an increase of 8.1% in the effective hours worked compared to the pre-pandemic period. The enormous coincidence in both level and temporal evolution of two such different statistics provides robustness to the behavior that is deduced from them. However, as can be seen in the same graph, both statistics are significantly higher than those observed in the statistics of the Active Population Survey (EPA) and the National Quarterly Accounting (CNTR), according to which in the second quarter of 2023 the effective hours worked would have barely increased by 1.2-1.4% the hours worked compared to the level before the pandemic. It is also observed that there is a break in the relationship of these series from the end of 2021.

This increase in the effective hours worked is mainly due to the combination of the increase in the number of people affiliated to Social Security in this period, and the fact that the effective hours for each contributor are 2% higher than the pre-pandemic levels.

SOURCES:

(*) Observation: The comparison is restricted to the population area of the ETCL (mainly sections of activity from B to S of the CNAE-09), except for TGSS.

General Treasury of Social Security (TGSS)

Quarterly Labour Cost Survey (ETCL)

Active Population Survey (EPA)

National Quarterly Accounting (CNTR)

Explanation of the published statistical report

This new quarterly statistical report is based on the common contingency contribution data of the General Treasury of Social Security, as well as the Statistics of Collective Labour Agreements, of the Ministry of Labour and Social Economy.

The report contains the following information:

The second column shows the average of the number of contributors of the General System in that quarter.

In the third column (1) appears the figure of the hours quoted for all workers of the general regime. In the methodology you can find how this figure is calculated, which combines observed quotation data and imputed data.

Columns 2, 3 and 4 express the hours paid by workers with ERTE status, in Temporary Incapacity and receiving other benefits.

The seventh column (5) reflects the actual hours worked, that is, the hours quoted in each of the quarters, discounted the periods in ERTE, Temporary Incapacity or in other benefits.

The last two columns reflect the moving average of four quarters of the effective hours worked and the index constructed from this data, respectively. This operation allows to eliminate the volatility between quarters to calculate the real medium-term evolution of the hours quoted.

Additional information in Excel: https://run.gob.es/otf75b4a

and the WEB: https://run.gob.es/otf070d0

[1] The detailed methodological note can be consulted on the Social Security website at the following link: https://run.gob.es/otf654e4