Short-term business statistics - observation units
A common definition of observation units (also called statistical units), i.e. the units about which data are collected, is a prerequisite for comparable European statistics. Council Regulation EEC No 696/93 of 15 March 1993 on the statistical units for the observation and analysis of the production system in the Community defines eight different types of statistical units.
With Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of 27 November 2019 (European Business Statistics Regulation) together with Regulation (EU) No 1197/2020 of 30 July 2020 the kind-of-activity unit (KAU) became the sole statistical unit for STS. In the past the KAU had been the statistical unit for industry and construction indices while the enterprise was used for trade and services indices. The change of the statistical unit for trade and service data in STS will however only be implemented by some national statistical institutes over the period between 2021 and the next base year change.
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Enterprise
An enterprise is an organisational unit producing goods or services which has a certain degree of autonomy in decision-making. An enterprise can carry out more than one economic activity and it can be situated at more than one location. An enterprise is not necessarily a sole legal unit but can be a group of legal units. (Since the enterprise is the starting point for the identidication of a KAU, its definition is explained here despite the recent legal change, see above.)
Kind-of-activity unit
The kind-of-activity unit (KAU) is a part of an enterprise. The KAU groups together all the offices, production facilities etc. of an enterprise which contribute to the performance of a specific economic activity defined at class level (four digits) of the European classification of economic activities (NACE Rev. 2.) For example a kind-of-activity unit might be the combination of all parts of a metal producing enterprise that produce copper (class 24.44 in NACE Rev. 2); within the same enterprise there might be another KAU consisting of those parts that produce aluminium (class 24.42 in NACE Rev. 2). In order to statistically subdivide enterprises into KAUs the enterprise's information system must be capable of indicating or calculating for each KAU at least the value of production, intermediate consumption, manpower costs, the operating surplus and employment and gross fixed capital formation.
The purpose of the KAU is to improve the homogeneity of statistical surveys by economic activity. In the above example, without the use of KAUs, it might be necessary to classify the enterprise either as a copper manufacturer or as an aluminium manufacturer. In such a way rather diverse enterprises might be considered to engage in the same economic activity which would make statistical results less clear and comparable.
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