Production account and value added

The production account describes operations on goods and services relating to the production process. Production assessed at basic prices (P1) is posted in the resources, while intermediate consumption at acquisition prices (P2) is posted in the uses. The balance is gross value added (B1g).

This represents the value created by resident economic units in their production activity. It is therefore calculated at basic prices, meaning exclusive of tax and net of subsidies on the products.

Net value added (B1n) is obtained after deduction of consumption of fixed capital which is a production cost like intermediate consumption.

Value added can be calculated for production units, for the institutional sectors to which they belong and for branches of activity.

Compensation and gross wages of employees

The compensation of salaried employees (D1) corresponds to all payments in cash and in kind made by employers to their employees in return for their work carried out over a given period of time.

Compensation of employees includes gross wages (D11) and the social contributions paid by employers (D12).

Gross wages are broken down into wages in cash (basic wages, overtime, various allowances, profit, productivity and transport bonuses, bank holiday pay and paid leave, commission, tips, etc.) and wages in kind (goods and services supplied by employers to their employees either free of charge or at reduced prices).

Generation of income account, gross operating surplus and gross mixed income

The generation of income account shows how gross value added (B1g) covers the compensation of employees (D1) and other taxes (D29) minus subsidies (D39) on production. Its balance is the gross operating surplus (B2g) or gross mixed income (B3g).

The gross operating surplus corresponds to the gross income which economic units derive from their use of their production assets and represents the gross return on capital from the sharing of value added. It includes income from production of housing services for own account for owner-occupier households. For sole proprietorships, the balance of the operating account also covers parts of the compensation of the work of the owner or of family members that cannot be distinguished from their profit as an entrepreneur; this is why it is referred to as gross mixed income.

Domestic employment and annual duration of work

Domestic employment, measured by number of people, includes all physical persons, whether residents or not, employed in a resident production unit. It includes non-residents and seasonal employees working on the economic territory and excludes residents working outside the economic territory. The number of jobs is an annual average. All types of jobs are counted, including short-term employment.

Domestic employment is calculated in "physical persons" and "full-time equivalents". Total employment includes salaried employment and non-salaried employment.

Domestic employment in "physical persons" counts all people in declared full-time or part-time employment. Domestic employment in "full-time equivalents" takes account of part-time work: two persons working at half-time for instance are recorded as one full-time equivalent. The number of full-time equivalents may therefore be lower than the number of physical persons. On the contrary, multi-activity and corrections for undeclared work tend to increase employment.

Domestic employment is broken down by branch and by institutional sector.

The annual duration of salaried work per "physical person" is the average quantity of hours worked by each salaried employee. In addition to taking account of part-time work, its calculation takes account of paid holidays (including bank holidays) and other forms of non-working days (partial unemployment, unemployment on account of weather conditions, sick leave, maternity leave, occupational accidents and strikes).

Productivity

The volume of hours worked by declared salaried employees is equal to the average annual duration of declared salaried work multiplied by domestic declared employment in "full-time equivalents".

The total volume of hours worked is equal to the average annual duration of work in a full-time job, multiplied by domestic employment in "full-time equivalents". It includes the hours worked by salaried employees, the self-employed and an estimate of the hours worked in "undeclared work".

A change in hourly work productivity corresponds to a variation in the ratio between value added by volume and the volume of hours worked over a given period of time.