Archive:Legal, accounting, market research and consultancy services statistics - NACE Rev. 1.1
This Statistics Explained article is outdated and has been archived - for recent articles on structural business statistics see here.
- Data from January 2009. Most recent data: Further Eurostat information, Main tables and Database.
This article presents the European Union structural business statistics for a variety of professional activities included in NACE Group 74.1:
- legal services;
- accounting, book-keeping, auditing and tax consultancy;
- market research and public opinion polling;
- business and management consultancy services;
- management activities relating to holding companies.
In this article these activivities are collectively referred to as 'professional business services'.
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Main statistical findings
Legal services cover the activities of advocates, barristers, solicitors, notaries, registered lawyers and legal consultants. Enterprises in this sector are generally small, and a common legal form is that of partnerships. Another characteristic of these activities is that they are used by households, for instance when they need an accountant, a lawyer, a notary or a tax adviser.
Structural profile
The 1.6 million enterprises active in the EU’s professional business services sector (NACE Group 74.1) employed 5.1 million persons in 2006. As such this sector accounted for more than one third (36.7 %) of all enterprises in the business services (NACE Divisions 72 and 74) population in 2006, and provided employment for just under one quarter (23.1 %) of the business services workforce. Paid employees accounted for a relatively low proportion (75.7 %) of the EU’s professional services workforce, indicating a large proportion of working proprietors and unpaid family workers: the average proportion of paid employees for all business services was 84.5 %.
This sector’s contribution to business services was greater when measured in output rather than employment terms: professional business services generated EUR 525.2 billion of turnover and EUR 279.2 billion of value added in 2006, accounting for 29.8 % of the business services turnover and 31.3 % of its value added. Professional business services had therefore the largest turnover and value added among the business services activities.
The United Kingdom generated more than one quarter (27.0 %) of the EU’s value added in this sector in 2006, the largest contribution among the Member States, followed by France and Germany that each contributed between 17 % and 18 %. Along with Italy, the only other Member State with a double digit share of EU value added, the four largest Member States dominated this sector, collectively accounting for 72.1 % of EU value added; for comparison, their share within business services was 70.6 % and within the non-financial business economy (NACE Sections C to I and K) as a whole it was 64.6 %. These four Member States were also the largest employers in the sector. This activity was also particularly important in Belgium and Luxembourg: indeed, the professional business services sector accounted for 9.2 % of non-financial business economy value added in Luxembourg, some way ahead of the 7.0 % share in the United Kingdom and the 6.6 % share in Belgium.
A product analysis
Data are available for a limited set of countries to allow a product analysis for three of the five NACE classes covered by the professional business services sector. Legal advisory and representation services accounted for the highest proportion of turnover in all of the countries concerning the legal activities subsector, except in Latvia, Lithuania and Malta. For enterprises in accounting, book-keeping, auditing and tax consultancy activities, four fifths of turnover was derived from the main products associated with these activities, with a further 13 % derived from business and management consultancy. The turnover derived by those enterprises operating within business and management consultancy activities was spread across a wide range of products, with just over three fifths of turnover derived from the main business and management consultancy services.
Expenditure and productivity
The EU’s professional business services sector invested around EUR 27.2 billion in 2006, approximately two fifths (40.9 %) of the business services total, a greater share than this sector contributed in value added terms. Consequently this sector recorded an above average investment rate, 9.7 % compared with the business services average of 7.5 %. As for computer and related activities, professional business services also reported above average apparent labour productivity (EUR 54.5 thousand per person employed)and average personnel costs (EUR 41.5 thousand per employee), in both cases the second highest among the business services activities. The wage adjusted labour productivity ratio that resulted from the combination of these two indicators was 131.4 %, marginally above the business services average. Among the Member States only the Hungarian professional business services sector had a wage adjusted labour productivity ratio below 100 % in 2006, meaning that apparent labour productivity was lower than average personnel costs.
Data sources and availability
The main part of the analysis in this article is derived from structural business statistics (SBS), including core, business statistics which are disseminated regularly, as well as information compiled on a multi-yearly basis, and the latest results from development projects.
Other possible data sources include short-term statistics and the Labour force survey. In addition, use has also been made of specialist sources for particular areas, notably transport, energy, research and development, environment, tourism and information society statistics.
Context
The freedom to provide services and the freedom of establishment are central principles to the internal market for services and are set out in the EC Treaty. They guarantee EU enterprises the freedom to establish themselves in other Member States, and the freedom to provide services on the territory of another EU Member State. The Directive on services in the internal market (COM(2006) 123) aims to achieve a genuine internal market in services, removing legal and administrative barriers to the development of services activities between Member States. The Directive was to be implemented by Member States by the end of 2009 at the latest. As well as covering most business services (with the notable exception of services of temporary work agencies), the Directive applies to a wide variety of services including industrial and construction activities, as well as distributive trades, hotels and restaurants, travel agents, real estate and renting services.
Further Eurostat information
Publications
- European Business: Facts and figures - 2009 edition
Dedicated section
Methodology / Metadata
- Structural business statistics (ESMS metadata file - sbs_esms)
Other information
- Directive 2006/123 of 12 December 2006 on services in the internal market
External links
- European Commission - The EU Single Market - Business-related Services
- European Commission - The EU Single Market - The competitiveness of business-related services