Service Statistics

The European economy is undergoing a transformation of servicification. This development is however regrettably not sufficiently reflected in the existing European business statistics, where statistics on services and business services are sparse and do not adequately reflect the sectors’ importance for the European economy. This was equally concluded by the High Level Group on Business Services, which stated that “data on business services remain a challenge”. EBSA believes this is a matter for concern.

EBSA welcomes the Commission’s attempts in the proposal for a Framework Regulation Integrating Business Statistics (FRIBS) to introduce more statistics on services, but regret that the reform is not more ambitious with regards to improving statistics on business services. Notably, EBSA is concerned that the definition of “enterprise” is not being modified, and that Eurostat is expected to enforce the old definition strictly. The risk here in our view is that statistics will not adequately reflect reality and may lead to a false impression that the importance of business services is decreasing, when actually the opposite is true.

EBSA has been working constructively with Eurostat and the rapporteur in the European Parliament on FRIBS as well as the member state representatives to improve this situation. We welcome the European Parliaments final report, and look forward to the next steps.

Read our position paper here: EBSA Position on Services Statistics