Industrial output: documentation of statistics

The statistics on industrial production (statistics on manufacturing commodities) describe industrial production by product category (or by commodity). The data of the statistics are collected from enterprises, their legal units or establishments. The statistics concern production during a calendar year in Finland.

The financial value and physical quantity is recorded in the statistics on the production of a commodity. The measurement units for quantity data are specific for each heading. Starting from the statistical year 2021, own production and subcontracting production are separated in the statistics. In the case of subcontracting, the enterprise provides goods to other enterprises for which the producer enterprise pays a fee to the subcontractor.  The amount of production and the fee received from production are reported for subcontracting production.

The statistics on industrial output describe the production of goods as sold production and subcontracting production. For the headings, in which the sales from the enterprise may differ considerably from actual annual production, total production is also inquired (usually only its volume, but in case of vessels the value of total production).

For the statistics on industrial output, the survey population comprises the enterprises, legal entities and their local establishments from the Business Register of Statistics Finland conducting significant enough industrial production to fall under the representativeness requirements of the EU’s PRODCOM Regulation (Council Regulation (EEC) No 3924/91 of 19 December 1991 on the establishment of a Community survey of industrial production).

In the statistics on industrial output the statistical unit used is the legal entity. The data supplier unit is the enterprise, the legal entity, or its local establishments or combinations thereof.

In the statistics on industrial output the data on value are inquired in euros for Eurostat but in the StatFin service they are published in EUR 1,000. The data on quantity are inquired and published in the commodity-specific physical units defined in the PRODCOM list or by Statistics Finland for the national supplementary headings.
The physical unit for quantities refers to the weight, length, area, volume, number (pieces or pairs), gross tonnage, power and energy, gross calorific value or some comparable property of the commodity. Quantity information is not inquired for services or variably quantified commodities.

The statistics on industrial output describe output during the calendar year.

The statistics on industrial output only encompass domestic production, which is published without regional divisions.

The statistics on industrial output cover sections B (mining and quarrying) and C (manufacturing) of the Standard Industrial Classification 2008. The required representativeness threshold is 90 per cent of the output for each 4-digit sub-industry.
The statistics on industrial output are based mainly on data obtained from enterprises with ten or more employees but some even smaller ones in certain branches of activity are included.

The period observed is one calendar year.
Finnish statistics on industrial production date back to the year 1884 (See Industrial products from early years)
Statistics according to the PRODCOM classification are available from 1998 onwards on the website:
PRODCOM 1998-2017 and PRODCOM 2013-2018.
 

The statistics on industrial output are annual and published at the turn of June and July in the year following the statistical year and they are updated in December of the same year and at the corresponding times in the following year.

The statistics on industrial output describe industrial production at the detailed level of product classes. Adjacent or otherwise alike product headings may differ very little from each other, which makes misplacement of observations to unintended product classes a typical error.

The response burden in the inquiry on industrial output is significant. This leads to errors and omissions in reporting, especially in the case of smaller enterprises. Using complementary sources, it is often possible to compensate for the lack of data, but non-response is clearly detrimental to statistical quality.

The statistics being product heading-specific, there are often only one or two producers per product class, making non-response cases very local and thus methodological or manual supplementation of the data is not possible in all cases.
The statistics on industrial output should not be interpreted as statistics on the total industrial output but on individual product classes. 
 

The statistics on industrial output are nationally published and submitted to Eurostat for publication six months after the end of the statistical year at the turn of June and July.

There is no time lag between the release calendar and the actual release date.

The statistics on industrial output in principle cover all industrial production in Finland. However, the share of the smallest manufacturers is left out as no statistical method enables a reliable estimation of it at the detailed level of product classes, which makes the figures slight underestimates.  

Data are usually revised at several headings after the initial publication, because data are updated constantly when new data become available.

The inquiry of industrial output is a total survey on manufacturing in Finland. However, the sample does not include the smallest producers, mainly enterprises with under ten employees. Because their commodity-specific shares of production cannot be estimated, for some commodities the statistics slightly underestimate production. Two separate groups of enterprises with 10 to 19 employees are used in sampling in alternate years. In intervening years estimated data are used for these enterprises.

The survey population is based on the stock of enterprises in Statistics Finland’s comprehensive Business Register database. Because responses are not obtained from all units in the sample, estimated data are used for some of the enterprises obliged to respond to the survey. A few units in the sample must be left out of the statistics because of there being no reliable basis for calculating estimates. The estimation procedure is needed for quantity information considerably more often than for value information. Quantity information is calculated from prices calculated from other producers' information.

Unit non-response is about 20 per cent of the enterprises with 20 or more employees and about 30 per cent of the enterprises with fewer than 20 employees.

The partially missing observations, for which
the value of sold production has been estimated, cover under two per cent
the quantity of sold production has been estimated, cover about five per cent
the quantity of total production has been estimated, cover under one per cent
of the value of total sold production recorded.

The statistics on industrial output only concern Finland as a single geographic area. The data submitted to Eurostat comply with the EU standards and are fully comparable with the data from other countries.

The statistics on industrial production have used the PRODCOM nomenclature for the classification of industrial products with national additions and/or clarifications since the statistical year 1997. As a result of the revised industrial classification 2008 and annual or periodic corrections and reforms of the underlying CN and CPA nomenclature, the comparability between different years has in places weakened at the most accurate heading level.

From the statistical year 2021, the distinction between subcontracting production and sold production makes it difficult to compare the value of sold production before the statistical year 2021. In 2020 and before that, subcontracting production was also included in the value of sold production. The change in the comparison of production volumes has no impact in different years.

The 6-digit level of the PRODCOM classification mainly concurs with the CPA nomenclature in use in the compilation of the producer price index, though in places they only match at the 5-digit PRODCOM level. The 8-digit PRODCOM level mainly corresponds to the nomenclature used for compiling the volume index of industrial output. 

Since the statistical year 2021, own sold production and subcontracting production produced for others have been broken down in the statistics on industrial production. Subcontracting production was included in the value of own production sold in the statistical year 2020 and before that. At the time, the value of subcontracting production was an estimate of the market value of production. Since the statistical year 2021, the value of subcontracting production has been reported according to the actual fee received from production. Since the definition of the value of sold  production is changing fundamentally, a new time series has been set up for industrial production since 2021. 

From the statistical year 2021 onwards, the production volumes are broken down into the volumes of own production and subcontracting production. However, the sum of these variables is comparable to the volumes for previous years. 

Changes in the PRODCOM nomenclature weaken the consistency of time series data on the most accurate level.
 

Data for the statistics on industrial output are annually inquired directly from enterprises engaged in manufacturing activities, their legal entities, or their local establishments or combinations thereof. In principle, the statistics are a total survey but the smallest entities of the population, mostly enterprises of 10 to 19 employees, are only inquired every second year and in the intervening years the data concerning them are represented by calculations based on their previous year’s data and the general industrial trend.

The data for the statistics on industrial output are collected through the XCOLA web questionnaire devised at Statistics Finland and integrated into its overall information system.

The inquiry for the statistics on industrial output concerning the previous calendar year is annually carried out during the first half-year.

For the respondent enterprises, the yearly costs of the inquiry on the statistics on industrial output are estimated to be roughly EUR 200,000. The estimate is based on response burden surveys made to data suppliers. The response burden and its costs are likely to be somewhat lower now after the questionnaire reform.

The yearly costs for Statistics Finland for producing the statistics on industrial output are in the order of four person-years or EUR 200,000.

Data considered reliable are accepted either on the basis of a programmatic or detailed examination into the data of the statistics. Missing data are estimated on the basis of other data concerning the enterprise, mainly programmatically, but in complex cases separately examined. The data for the smallest enterprises, mostly those of 10 to 19 employees, are estimated every second year on the basis of their previous year’s data and the general industrial trend.
 

The data collected on the web questionnaire are transmitted to the enterprise information system of Statistics Finland where for every respondent’s data an error score is calculated. Depending on the score, an individual scrutiny may be in order. In these cases, contacting the respondent is often necessary. The corrected data can be resent through the questionnaire.

The imputation rate of missing information, weighted by the value of sold production, is less than one per cent for all variables.

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Economic Statistics

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. More specific regulations are: the EEC’s PRODCOM Regulation (Council Regulation (EEC) No 3924/91 on the establishment of a Community survey of industrial production); The regulation on statistical units, Council Regulation No 696/93 on statistical units is applied to statistics on business activities; Regulation on economic activities: Standard Industrial Classification 2008 is based on the European Union's common industrial classification, NACE Rev. 2, supplemented with the fifth level for national needs; Regulation No 177/2008 on business registers.

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

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) 

The data of a single code are suppressed as confidential if the following two conditions are simultaneously met: 1) An enterprise that has produced a product under the code has asked for confidentiality and besides 2) at most two enterprises have produced products under the code or production under the code is dominated by a single producer enterprise.
Requests for the data to be kept confidential are recorded in a separate register. The enterprises providing data for the statistics are informed of the rules of confidentiality in the cover letter of the inquiry and its description on the website. In all product classes, the number of the producer enterprises is kept confidential, as are naturally their names as well.
In order to enable the aggregate calculations concerning the EU, the data are submitted to Eurostat with confidential numbers included but supplied with confidentiality markings for taking national confidentiality criteria into account.

The statistics on industrial output are published right after the date (June 30) defined in the EU Council Regulation (EEC) No 3924/91 on the establishment of a Community survey of industrial production for submission of the annual PRODCOM data to Eurostat: Industrial output: future releases.

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

The statistics on industrial output are published annually in the StatFin database in at the turn of June and July. The corresponding data, though without those of the supplementary national headings are submitted to Eurostat at the same time. National accounts, index statistics and research services are accorded the data at the detailed level of statistical units.

The previous year's statistics are delivered to Eurostat at the end of June following the statistical reference year, see Eurostat database. In cases of significant changes in data an update file is supplied to Eurostat.
A few customised data sets per year are prepared for customers, of which part are subject to a charge.
 

The statistics on industrial output are made available to users according to the release calendar on the website of the statistics. Following the links there, all published statistical material with its pertinent descriptions is available.

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. 

Research laboratory micro-data are available for researchers with a user licence. Anonymisation of the data is done by encryption software on the identification information.
 

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. 

The statistics on industrial output are widely utilised within Statistics Finland: in national accounts, volume index of industrial output, producer price index and other indices. External users include research institutes, universities, labour market organisations, market researchers, international organisations (EU, UN, OECD) and various kinds of project researchers.
 

No special user satisfaction survey has been conducted on the statistics on industrial output. A general web-based feedback channel is in use. Direct user feedback is encouraged in contacts with data suppliers.

The quality report 2020 in Finnish: Quality report.

Correctness of the data is verified at the level of single observations. The observations to be individually checked are chosen with the help of a computer program. The data are also compared to relevant data from other sources.

The data quality of the statistics on industrial output is monitored by scrutiny of the data accumulated throughout the process of data collecting by using aggregate-level measures. The important baselines are the corresponding statistics for the previous year, and to some extent the other statistics for the current year, specifically those concerning industrial growth.

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 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)

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.