Industry statistics for Svalbard

Establishment
The Standard Industrial Classification (SIC2007) defines an establishment as a locally defined functional unit whose main activities fall within a specific industrial classification. The activity carried out by a legal entity (enterprise) is known as an establishment. A legal entity can engage in one or more establishments/businesses.

Number of man-hours worked
This is defined as the total number of hours worked by employees in a workplace, both within and outside normal working hours. Short breaks are included, but time spent in transit between home and the workplace is not included.

Employment Employment is defined as the total number of owners and employees. In relation to the register-based employment statistics , where a person is only counted in his/her main job, the same person here can have more than one job.

Hired personnel from temporary staff recruitment agencies are not included in the employment figure.

Turnover
Turnover is defined as an enterprise's operating revenues minus government subsidies and gains on the sale of fixed assets. Special public duties related to the sale, and taxes and duties are included in the turnover, but VAT is not included.

Salary costs
Wages, holiday pay, fees, employer's national insurance contributions, pension costs subject to reporting and other personnel costs for work carried out on Svalbard. Salary costs do not include remuneration to owners of sole proprietorships or partnerships.

Public subsidies
Applies to allocations received for operations and investment from the government, the local government on Longyearbyen, Svalbard Samfunnsdrift and other public bodies (e.g. Innovation Norway).

Total purchase of goods and services
The total purchase of goods and services includes the value of all goods and services that are purchased during the course of the year for resale, for use in the enterprise’s own production process or for storage. The procurement of tangible fixed assets is not included in these figures.

Investments
Investments in assets with a lifetime of more than a year, including investments in new and used capital goods, and extensions, alterations, improvements and repairs that prolong the lifetime of the capital goods or increase their production capacity. Costs for design, transportation, installation and any special duties are also included.

Deductible VAT, financial expenses, tax benefits achieved (e.g. investments in more environmentally-friendly equipment) and fixed assets acquired through restructuring (e.g. mergers, takeovers, demergers, divisions) are not included.

Purchased goods are valued at cost price and self-produced goods are valued at production cost.

The industrial classification is in accordance with the Norwegian Standard Industrial Classification (SIC2007) , which is based on the EU’s industry standard NACE Rev. 2 and the UN’s industry standard ISIC Rev. 3.

Name: Industry statistics for Svalbard
Topic: Establishments, enterprises and accounts

Division for Structural Business Statistics

National level

Annually

Preliminary key figures are published eight months after the end of the statistics year. Final figures are released together with final figures for the other structure statistics within 18 months of the year to which the figures apply.

Not relevant

Micro data, information on sample units and population are stored temporarily in the program language SAS, and stored long term as text files.

The industry statistics for Svalbard are a full census at establishment level. The statistics are published on an ongoing basis and provide detailed information on the activity on Svalbard based on data collected from all active establishments.

The statistics are intended to show the structure within all the main sectors of industry in the Standard Industrial Classification based on data collected from the relevant financial year. The statistics were first published in the statistics year 2008.

The data is useful for both central and local authorities, ministries and various trade associations that require statistics on Svalbard. The figures that are collected are made unidentifiable and the micro data is accessible to researchers in accordance with Statistics Norway’s standard terms. Coordinated data collection entails Statistics Norway being responsible for collecting data from the establishments on Svalbard and the data required for Svalbard: Society and industrial affairs 2008 being covered in the data basis. The timeliness in relation to Longyearbyen's local government’s previous data releases is maintained and released at an earlier date than other national industry statistics.

Not relevant

Employment figures are collected at establishment level. Data on employment in industries can also be found in the national accounts and in the employment statistics based on data from the Labour Market Survey and the register-based employment statistics.

While the industry statistics can provide employment figures on a detailed industry and are consistent with other establishment-related variables, the national accounts provide quarterly figures with a short production time. The Labour Market Survey and the register-based employment statistics also provide figures on personal identifiers such as age, sex, education and working hours. The register-based employment statistics also give figures down to municipality level.

The Statistics Act of June 21, 2019 number 32

Not relevant

The Industry survey for Svalbard is broken down in line with the Standard Industrial Classification SIC2007 and covers the following industries:

All of the establishments within these industries are included in the statistics if they are registered as an active business on Svalbard in the statistics year.

Primary industries farm, forestry and fishing (01 - 03: SN2007) are not covered in the industry statistics for Svalbard. When it comes to fishing in the waters off Svalbard this is included in the national statistics for fisheries ( http://www.ssb.no/fiskeri/ ). For details about the capture volume and value in the waters off Svalbard, please visit the ministry's statistics bank: http://www.fiskeridir.no/fiskeridirektoratets-statistikkbank . More details of these variables for fisheries protection zone around Svalbard and other nearby hunting zones can be found here.

Statistics for enterprises made up of only one establishment are based on the said enterprise’s tax statement or annual accounts. The tax statement is submitted together with the questionnaire (paper form) or reported electronically via the Tax Inspectorate.

The data is quality assured using the following sources:

• Electronically delivered tax statements to the Tax Directorate
• Register of Company Accounts at Brønnøysund
• VAT register
• Register of employees and employers

The Central Register of Establishments and Enterprises is used when collecting data. The register is updated regularly with data relating to Svalbard in collaboration with the local government on Longyearbyen, the VAT register, the Central Coordinating Register for Legal Entities, various trade organisations and directly from the individual establishment/enterprise.

The population consists of all active establishments within the aforementioned industry sectors in the statistics year. The detailed accounting data is collated with the information from the administrative registers. Together these form the basis for calculations, economic analyses and the structure in the industry.

The forms will be sent out in April / May, and have a 4-week response deadline.

Establishments that do not answer by the deadline are sent a written reminder up to three months after expiry of the deadline. Establishments that do not respond after receiving the reminder are issued with a compulsory fine.

Controls and alignments are carried out on data received from establishments, tax statements and annual accounts. Critical controls are carried out on industry classifications, employee figures and turnover. Revisions of the data are carried out after controls against figures from the previous year, the Central Register of Establishments and Enterprises, Register of Company Accounts at Brønnøysund, other available sources and according to consultations with the respondent where necessary.

Data received is controlled against electronically delivered tax statements, annual accounts and through contact with the respondent. Since the statistics are a full census, there is no need for estimations.

The employment figures are controlled against the Register of employees and employers, and undergo a manual or automated revision prior to publishing, based on the control source.

Not relevant

Due to the situation of domineering establishments on Svalbard, exemption from confidentiality is required for Store Norske Spitsbergen Kullkompani AS. Otherwise, the rule is applied which stipulates that figures are not published where there are fewer than three units in a cell in a table. The reason for this is a risk of identification whereby the figures can be traced back to the respondent. This particularly applies when publishing figures at a low geographical level. This is solved by suppressing these figures in the table.

When comparing with previously published figures, users should be aware that older data may have been corrected in connection with the revision of the last year’s statistics. In addition, updating of industry codes in the Central Register of Establishments and Enterprises could lead to changes for some of the industries. Such changes will not be reflected in the figures for previous years.

Forms received are read optically and checked in an automated process. An optical image of the form is stored electronically, and subsequently controlled manually in order to ensure the greatest possible degree of correct data. The results from a statistical survey may, however, contain measurement and processing errors.

Measurement errors arise when the respondent gives the wrong answer due to an oversight, misunderstanding or similar. A typical example is figures that are given in whole kroner instead of NOK 1 000. Using recognised terms and providing easily-accessible guidelines reduces this type of error.

Processing errors are errors in the coding or errors that arise when transferring data from the form to the machine-readable medium or during revisions.

Form-based surveys normally contain a certain number of non-responses. Non-responses by units are due to circumstances such as closure, bankruptcy, mergers, demergers, holidays, errors in the dispatch, refusals and similar. Partial non-responses (where answers are missing to individual questions) can be due to oversights, lack of data or other circumstances.

Non-responses by key units are followed up in the manual post control. Establishments that do not return their form are issued with a compulsory fine. Notification of a possible fine is often sufficient to provoke a response. Applying fines reduces the non-response rate to a large extent, but not necessarily the uncertainty if the respondent chooses, for example, to estimate numbers just to avoid a fine.

The variables that are included are based on a full census. Sampling errors are therefore not relevant.

Several administrative registers are central to the work entailed in the structure statistics. The Central Register of Establishments and Enterprises is used both to define the population and to retrieve identifiers and data. The Central Coordinating Register for Legal Entities at Brønnøysund, the VAT register and the Register of employees and employers are used to retrieve data on the units. These data form the basis for two types of register errors, which can have an impact on the uncertainty in the statistics.

The most common error is as a result of time lags in the registers. Such time lags can be caused by late reporting to the registers or because changes are normally registered some time after they have occurred. The consequences are that the registers are not fully up-to-date at any given time, which can lead to imbalances in the sampling or outdated data being used in the statistics.

Identifiers such as industry code, status etc. in the Central Register of Establishments and Enterprises are used as a basis when submitting statistics. The quality of these identifiers is vital to the division of the population into practical strata, and thus affects the quality of the population.

Not relevant