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Concepts and definitions

Ancillary establishment

An ancillary establishment produces services (in exceptional cases also goods such as additives and materials) mainly for the enterprise or an enterprise-type unit itself. Ancillary activities are nearly always a prerequisite for performing principal and secondary activities. The industry of the ancillary establishment is defined according to the principal activity it serves.

Ancillary establishments can be e.g. the head or district office or other such administrative office, a separate transport unit, a repair shop for the enterprise's own vehicles, a warehouse or a data processing unit. If such functions take place in the same establishment as normal production, they are usually not considered to be ancillary establishments.

In regional and industrial statistics on manufacturing also a power plant linked to an industrial establishment producing energy for the establishment or enterprise and a separate research and development unit linked to an industrial establishment are regarded as ancillary establishments.

Hours worked

Sum of hours actually worked by wage and salary earners during the financial year. The hours are determined methodologically from information available from the Labour Cost Index.

Manufacturing

Manufacturing is understood as the processing of mechanical or chemical organic or inorganic substances into new products regardless of whether the processing is mechanical or manual and performed in a factory or in a worker's home. According to the definition, also product assembly is considered to be manufacturing. In statistics compilation manufacturing is traditionally deemed to include not only basic manufacturing but also mining and quarrying as well as electricity, gas and water supply.

Number of employees

Employees comprise wage and salary earners and self-employed persons. Employees are converted to annual full-time employees so that, for example, an employee working half-time represents one half of a person and two employees working half-time for one year represent one annual full-time employee.

Labour input for self-employed persons is calculated as the input the owner of an enterprise or his/her family member makes into the enterprise without actual remuneration.

For enterprises not included in the surveys of the Register of Enterprises and Establishments numbers of employees are estimated from data on wages and salaries.

Reference period

The reference period is the period for which data is collected. In structural statistics the reference period is the accounting period.

Statistical unit

A statistical unit is the basic statistical unit in statistics compilation, i.e. the unit from whom the data is collected. In structural business statistics a statistical unit is either an independent enterprise or an establishment of an enterprise.