Quality of work life: documentation of statistics
Concepts
Absence from working life due to child care
This means generally a longer absence from work caused only by family leave, child home care leave or other child care - occasional, short absences are not included, such as a child falling ill. If the person has had several maternity leaves, the periods are added up.
Absence is also the time when in addition to child care the person has worked only occasionally or little (under 5 hours per week).
If the respondent has been on maternity or paternal leave or taken care of children direct after school/studies before starting paid employment, this time is also counted as absence from working life.
Day work
Distance work
Employee
Employer sector
Fixed-term job
Full-time work
Inappropriate treatment
Local kind of activity unit (Establishment)
The establishment is a key unit in the application of the Standard Industrial Classification because
- data by establishment gives the best picture of the structure of the economy,
- establishments can be used for collecting data and producing statistics on the activities of enterprises by geographical and administrative area,
- it is fastest and most economical to collect many basic data related to production, such as numbers of items produced and hours worked, directly from establishments,
- establishments make it possible to obtain data by industry on enterprises operating within several industries,
- all statistics on persons describe the distribution of the population by industry or economic activity through establishments.
As an enterprise always operates at some location, it has at least one establishment. Most enterprises have a single establishment while the largest enterprises may have numerous establishments in different parts of the country. Furthermore, these may operate in different economic sectors.
Mental violence
Number of occupations during life
Occupation
Occupational accident
An occupational accident is defined in Section 4 of the Employment Accidents Act. An employment accident means any accident causing injury or illness sustained by the employee in the course of his/her employment or in circumstances arising from employment. According to the act, employment accidents are divided according to the place of accident as follows:
- an employment accident has occurred at work or in work-related circumstances. Then traffic accidents while at work are also defined as employment accidents.
- commuting accident has occurred outside the actual working time while commuting from his/her residence to work or vice versa.
Part-time work
Performance-related pay
Period work
Regular evening work
Regular night work
Rehabilitation
Sex
Successive employment relationships
In the field of education employment relationships with a break of the whole summer can be taken into account. It is quite common in the branch that a fixed-term employment relationship ends at the beginning of the summer when the term ends, and a new employment relationship is started in the autumn at the beginning of the term.
Team work
A group is often defined as a continuously interacting community or set formed by two or more people with common goals. In working life groups and teams can be founded to look after a continuing task or production or on the other hand, for some restricted task only.
It is a question of the respondent doing his or her normal work in a group or in several groups. Included are not some separate representative tasks demanding only little working time in different work groups. On the other hand, group working is difficult to distinguish from a small work unit that works according to a certain division of work. The respondent's personal opinion is here decisive: whether he or she calls his or her work team or group work. In some branches, such as the metal industry, the corresponding units are called cells.
Three-shift work
Unpaid overtime
If the respondent works overtime, for which he or she gets compensation as time off but in practice never has time to take all that time off, this can be regarded as overtime without compensation.
The maximum working time prescribed in the working hours legislation also concerns upper salaried employees even if they said that they had signed an employment contract where overtime is regarded as being included in their pay. Only the very top management remains outside the Working Hours Act.
Contract or project workers do not have agreed working time but they are paid on completed work. Then they cannot in principle work overtime either. If the respondent thinks he or she works much more than normal working time (e.g. over 40 hours per week), this can be counted as overtime without compensation.
Principles and outlines
Contact organisation
Legal acts and other agreements
The compilation of statistics is guided by the Statistics Act. The Statistics Act contains provisions on collection of data, processing of data and the obligation to provide data. Besides the Statistics Act, the Data Protection Act and the Act on the Openness of Government Activities are applied to processing of data when producing statistics.
Statistics Finland compiles statistics in line with the EU’s regulations applicable to statistics, which steer the statistical agencies of all EU Member States.
Further information: Statistical legislation
Confidentiality - policy
The data protection of data collected for statistical purposes is guaranteed in accordance with the requirements of the Statistics Act (280/2004), the Act on the Openness of Government Activities (621/1999), the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 and the Data Protection Act (1050/2018). The data materials are protected at all stages of processing with the necessary physical and technical solutions. Statistics Finland has compiled detailed directions and instructions for confidential processing of the data. Employees have access only to the data essential for their duties. The premises where unit-level data are processed are not accessible to outsiders. Members of the personnel have signed a pledge of secrecy upon entering the service. Violation of data protection is punishable.
Further information: Data protection | Statistics Finland (stat.fi)
Release policy
Statistics Finland publishes new statistical data at 8 am on weekdays in its web service. The release times of statistics are given in advance in the release calendar available in the web service. The data are public after they have been updated in the web service.
Further information: Publication principles for statistics at Statistics Finland
Accessibility and clarity
Statistical data are published as database tables in the StatFin database. The database is the primary publishing site of data, and new data are updated first there. When releasing statistical data, existing database tables can be updated with new data or completely new database tables can be published.
In addition to statistical data published in the StatFin database, a release on the key data is usually published in the web service. If the release contains data concerning several reference periods (e.g. monthly and annual data), a review bringing together these data is published in the web service. Database tables updated at the time of publication are listed both in the release and in the review. In some cases, statistical data can also be published as mere database releases in the StatFin database. No release or review is published in connection with these database releases.
Releases and database tables are published in three languages, in Finnish, Swedish and English. The language versions of releases may have more limited content than in Finnish.
Information about changes in the publication schedules of releases and database tables and about corrections are given as change releases in the web service.
Data revision - policy
Revisions – i.e. improvements in the accuracy of statistical data already published – are a normal feature of statistical production and result in improved quality of statistics. The principle is that statistical data are based on the best available data and information concerning the statistical phenomenon. On the other hand, the revisions are communicated as transparently as possible in advance. Advance communication ensures that the users can prepare for the data revisions.
The reason why data in statistical releases become revised is often caused by the data becoming supplemented. Then the new, revised statistical figure is based on a wider information basis and describes the phenomenon more accurately than before.
Revisions of statistical data may also be caused by the calculation method used, such as annual benchmarking or updating of weight structures. Changes of base years and used classifications may also cause revisions to data.
Quality assurance
Quality management requires comprehensive guidance of activities. The quality management framework of the field of statistics is the European Statistics Code of Practice (CoP). The frameworks complement each other. The quality criteria of Official Statistics of Finland are also compatible with the European Statistics Code of Practice.
Further information: Quality management | Statistics Finland (stat.fi)
User access
Data are released to all users at the same time. Statistical data may only be handled at Statistics Finland and information on them may be given before release only by persons involved in the production of the statistics concerned or who need the data of the statistics concerned in their own work before the data are published.
Further information: Publication principles for statistics
Unless otherwise separately stated in connection with the product, data or service concerned, Statistics Finland is the producer of the data and the owner of the copyright. The terms of use for statistical data
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