The data has been collected through a survey of enterprises with at least 50 persons employed.

The data category covers a group of variables which provide relevant statistical evidence and information about factors driving international sourcing e.g. the impact on the competitiveness, motivations and perceived barriers together with possible employment consequences in the Member State. 

There have been four collection rounds:
1) In 2007 the data has been collected on a voluntary basis for 13 countries: Germany, Czechia, Netherlands, Denmark, Spain, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Finland, Slovenia, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Norway.
2) In 2011 the data has been collected on a voluntary basis for 15 countries: Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Ireland, France, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Finland, Slovakia, Sweden and Norway.
3) In 2018 the data has been collected on a voluntary basis for 16 countries: Austria, Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Sweden and Norway.
4) In 2021 the data has been collected on a voluntary basis for 17 countries: Austria, Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Sweden and Norway. French data will be published by the end of 2022.

The data focuses on the relocation of core and support business functions of enterprises in the business economy sector, from domestic to abroad and vice versa, as a result of decisions taken by the domestic enterprises.

In summary, the collected indicators are :

• Number of enterprises
• Number of jobs created and jobs lost as a result of international sourcing activity
• Number of persons employed

The dimensions used to describe the International sourcing in the 2021 collection round are:

• Economic activity
• Sourcing status
• Business function
• Sourcing activities
• Type of business partners
• Country destination of international sourcing
• Movement of business functions abroad
• Job creation/job loss identification
• Motivation factors and their level of importance
• Barriers for international sourcing

In the 2021 collection round two new dimensions were include:

• GVC arrangements related to enterprises purchasing and supplying goods and services abroad
• COVID-19 impact on international sourcing, turnover and trade

1. Sourcing activities

• Sourcing: The total or partial movement of business functions (core or support business functions) currently performed in-house of a resident enterprise to either non-affiliated (external suppliers) or affiliated enterprises located either domestically or abroad.
• International sourcing: The total or partial movement of business functions (core or support business functions) currently performed in-house or currently domestically sourced by the resident enterprise to either non-affiliated (external suppliers) or affiliated enterprises located abroad.
• Sourcing does not include: Expansion domestically or abroad; for example a set-up of a new production line domestically or abroad without a movement of business functions domestically or abroad (core or support business functions) nor reduction of activity and/or jobs in the concerned enterprise.
• Insourcing and outsourcing: The survey distinguishes between international sourcing to a foreign affiliate or daughter company within the same multinational enterprise group — so-called insourcing — and sourcing to external providers, called outsourcing.

2. Business functions

• Core business function: Production of final goods or services intended for the market/for third parties carried out by the enterprise and yielding income. Core business function equals in most cases the primary activity of the enterprise. It may also include other (secondary) activities if the enterprise considers these to comprise part of their core functions.
• Support business function: Support business functions (ancillary activities) are carried out in order to permit or facilitate production of goods or services intended for the market/for third parties by the enterprise. The outputs of the support business functions are not themselves intended directly for the market/for third parties.
• The business functions are divided into:

• Production of goods and materials for the market (Manufacturing; processing; assembly; refining; printing and binding; casting of metals; building of ships; Mining; extraction of gas and oil; stone quarrying; power generation (except trade of electricity); Development of building projects; civil engineering; specialised construction tasks, including demolition.
• Transport, logistics and storage
  • Transportation and logistics (Road, water, rail and air transport activities; passenger and cargo transport; postal services)
  • Warehousing and storage (Warehousing; storage; packaging)
• Marketing, sales, and after-sales service
  • Marketing and after-sales services (Advertising and media representation; market research and public opinion polling; call centers)
  • Sales (Retail and wholesale; trade of gas and electricity; sales agents and real-estate trading)
• Information and communication technology services
  • Information and communication technology services (Software publishing, and computer consultancy activities; programming and broadcasting tasks; telecommunications tasks; data processing and hosting; web portals and related information service tasks; installation of mainframe computers; maintenance and repair of computers and communications systems)
  • Software programming (Computer programming, consultancy and related tasks)
• Management and administration
  • Management (Financial services e.g. banking, insurance, financial leasing, fund management; activities of head offices; HRM activities)
  • Administration (Financial markets administration; legal tasks; bookkeeping, accounting and auditing; office administration and business support services; public administration services)Engineering and related technical services (Examples: Support tasks for raw material extraction; sound recording and video production; architectural and engineering tasks, and technical analysis)
• Research and development (Examples: Research and experimental development in the area of natural sciences and engineering, and social sciences and humanities)
• Other business functions
  • Facility management (Accommodation e.g. hotels and camps; food and beverage services e.g. cafes and restaurants; landscape services; libraries; museums; sports centres)
  • Maintenance and repair services (Maintenance and repair of non-ICT electronic equipment, transportation vehicles, and personal and household goods)
  • Other services (Water, waste collection and, sewerage; remediation services; professional services e.g. photography and translation; travel agency activities; rental and operational leasing activities; security; education; human health activities and residential care; social services; creative and arts activities; gambling and betting; sports activities excluding facility management)

 3. Global Value Chains (GVC): GVCs comprise the full range of cross-border activities required to bring a product or service from conception through the different production and delivery phases to final consumers.

4. GVC trade: It refers to an international trade that takes place in a GVC. Most commonly, this includes trade in intermediate goods and services.

5. Covid-19 events: These events resulted directly from the Covid-19 outbreak, hampering or enabling an enterprise's business activity. Examples are government lockdowns, shutting down sales points, and positive events such as increased sales of protection masks.

6. Units

• Enterprise: The statistical unit of this survey is the enterprise. The enterprise is the smallest combination of legal units that is an organizational unit producing goods or services, which benefits from a certain degree of autonomy in decision making, especially for the allocation of its current resources. An enterprise carries out one or more activities at one or more locations. An enterprise may be a sole legal unit but can also be part of an enterprise group. The head of an enterprise group can either be located in the same country as the enterprises or in another country.
• Enterprise group: An enterprise group is a set of enterprises controlled by the group head. The group head is a parent legal unit which is not controlled either directly or indirectly by any other legal unit. An enterprise group comprises of the group head and subsidiaries. The subsidiary enterprises of a subsidiary enterprise are considered to be subsidiaries of the parent enterprise. An enterprise group is an association of enterprises bound together by legal and/or financial links. A group of enterprises can have more than one decision-making centre, especially for policy on production, sales and profits. It may centralize certain aspects of financial management and taxation. It constitutes an economic entity which is empowered to make choices, particularly concerning the units which it comprises. (Council Regulation (EEC) N° 696/93 on Statistical Units)
• Group head: A parent legal unit which is not controlled either directly or indirectly by any other legal unit. Control refers to the dominant influence of a parent unit over the medium and long-term strategies of one ore more subsidiaries; ie. the parent unit must be able to influence (directly or indirectly) the decision in the ordinary or extraordinary meetings of all the subsidiaries. (Business Register Recommendations Manual)
• Global group head: A group head which is not controlled either directly or indirectly by any other legal unit (not a local group head, which has a foreign parent).
• Ultimate controlling institutional unit: Ultimate controlling institutional unit of a foreign affiliate is the institutional unit, proceeding up a foreign affiliate's chain of control, which is not controlled by another institutional unit. Control means the ability to determine the general policy of an enterprise by choosing appropriate directors, if necessary. Enterprise A is deemed to be controlled by an institutional unit B when B controls -directly or indirectly- more than half of the shareholders' voting power or more than half of the shares. (Recommendations Manual on the Production of Foreign Affiliates Statistics)
• Subsidiary: A single institutional unit secures control over a corporation by owning more than half the voting shares or otherwise controlling more than half the shareholders' voting power. Corporation C is said to be subsidiary of corporation B when: either corporation B controls more than half of the shareholders' voting power in corporation C or corporation B is a shareholder in C with the right to appoint or remove a majority of the directors of C. In order to control more than half the shareholders' voting power, an institutional unit needs not own any of the voting shares itself. A corporation C could be a subsidiary of another corporation B in which a third corporation A owns a majority of the voting shares. (European System of Accounts (ESA) 1995, [2.26])
• Jobs lost: The enterprises are asked to estimate the total number (gross) of domestic jobs lost in the responding enterprises as a result of international sourcing. Domestic job losses in the responding enterprise that have taken place due to reasons other than international sourcing (e.g. domestic lay-offs, poor business cycle etc.) are not included here. Even if jobs (business functions) have been moved abroad, the persons previously performing these functions may still be employed in the company carrying out other tasks (may also be new tasks related to jobs created because of international sourcing). In these cases, the jobs should still be counted as jobs lost. Therefore, generally speaking, the "jobs lost" concept has nothing to do with the observed change in the Number of employees and self-employed persons of the enterprise; an enterprise may, e.g. record "jobs lost" due to international sourcing and still record an increase in its "Number of employees and self-employed persons".
• Jobs created: The enterprises are asked to estimate the total number (gross) of domestic jobs created in the responding enterprises as a result of international sourcing. Domestic jobs created in the responding enterprise due to reasons other than international sourcing (e.g. expansion abroad) are not included here. A common reason for job creation is the increased availability of funds due to international sourcing. These funds, in turn, can lead to job creation in another business function (e.g. outsourcing some IT personnel led to some cost savings, which enabled the enterprise to hire more sales staff). The respondent estimates this variable in a direct link with international sourcing, as job creation is difficult to back up with hard data.

Data are collected under gentlemen's agreement within the context of the development of Structural Business Statistics. The data is covered by the rules on confidential data in force in the EU. The Parliament and Council Regulation No 295/2008 concerning Structural Business statistics provides a legal basis for the data collection.

Eurostat makes available all non-confidential data on its dissemination website.

Confidentiality - if data are of truly confidential nature according to the above mentioned regulation, they have to be flagged confidential, and they will not be published by Eurostat.

No advanced schedule of dissemination.

This information is not available.

Eurostat has performed internal consistency checks (consistency between series, aggregations etc.) before disseminating the data.

Revisions can be carried out by Member States, information on any such changes are to be provided in the methodological reports accompanying the data. However, as this is a once off ad hoc survey revisions are very unlikely and major changes in methodology are impossible.

International sourcing data are collected by the National Statistical Institutes (NSI) among enterprises.

The data are collected through statistical surveys. A common questionnaire to be used by all participating countries was developed. Many countries introduced additional questions and/or made changes to the existing questions, order of the questions or dropped some questions from the common questionnaire. 

The information has been collected by means of a statistical survey. The enterprises concerned (more than 50 persons employed) are completely enumerated in most countries that participated in the project.

In most countries, the survey was done electronically and on a voluntary basis. The definitions were a part of the questionnaire. Cover letters were used to inform about the background of the survey and motivate enterprises to fill in the questionnaire. The fact the survey was voluntary affected the response rates, which in turn affected the quality of the results. As the International sourcing is a development project ad hoc survey and not part of the regular SBS survey, one should be careful when using and interpreting the results.

At Eurostat level data is validated before publishing. A number of logical checks between different breakdowns are performed.

European Union aggregates (averages) are calculated according to the countries for which data are available. In the 2007 data collection Spain covered only sections G, I, K and K. Accordingly, Spanish data is neither included in the EU Non-financial market aggregate (C to I and K) nor in the EU special aggregate over sections C, E, F, G, H, I, and K, but is included in the EU separate aggregates for sections G, H, I and K. In the 2011, 2018 and 2021 data collection no such exceptions occured.

The European averages are calculated on a non-weighted basis (irrespective of the country - each enterprise is equally worth).