Monthly

Data collection is by post and via the internet over a period that extends from the end of the month preceding the survey month to the survey publication date, i.e. 4 business days before the end of the current month.

Survey results are sent to the European Commission 4 business days before the end of the month.

The collection period runs from the end of the month preceding the reference month of the survey to the date of publication of the results (between the 20th and 25th of the reference month).

Legal unit

The survey covers 2,500 companies with more than 10 employees.

All companies with more than 500 employees are canvassed.

2,500 units

The monthly business outlook survey in the building industry is conducted every month. It includes a quarterly component of a few questions asked in January, April, July and October.

In practice, two models of questionnaires were created to take into account these specificities:
- the monthly questionnaire corresponds to the months of February, March, May, June, September, November and December. This questionnaire contains only the questions at monthly intervals;
- the quarterly questionnaire is sent in January, April, July and October. In addition to monthly questions, it includes questions on a quarterly basis.

The published series are seasonally adjusted (CVS). Seasonality tests are carried out on all series. A series that initially has no seasonal character is presented as a CVS series with zero coefficients and is equal to the gross series. The effects are estimated using the X-13 ARIMA method under JDemetra+ (provided by Eurostat) at the level of aggregates specific to the NAF rev. 2 subclass survey (structural work, frames and roofs, installation work, finishing). CVS indices for senior positions are obtained directly, not by aggregating the CVS indices that compose them.