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2003 results released
Results from the 2003 New Earnings Survey are available on Nomis. Weekly earnings for full-time adults whose pay was not affected by absence stood at £476, an increase of 2.4 per cent since April 2002. Part-time weekly earnings rose more quickly, by 3.2 per cent, to stand at £152.
In line with normal practice, estimates from the 2002 survey have been revised (but only in the new data sets, see following section). These take account of a small number of corrections to the original 2002 data which were identified during the validation of the 2003 results. The impact on the whole economy estimate of growth in average gross weekly pay for full-time employees was less than 0.1 per cent (or around 17 pence on the estimate of average weekly pay).
New Data Sets
The 2003 and revised 2002 data are coded according to the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) 2000. Two new data sets are available on Nomis:
- New Earnings Survey : workplace based statistics by SOC 2000 occupation
Contains new 2003 and revised 2002 data coded by the employees workplace address
- New Earnings Survey : residence based statistics by SOC 2000 occupation
Contains new 2003 and revised 2002 data coded by the employees home address (residence-based data was not previously available on Nomis)
The original SOC 1990 data set remains available for data for 1999 to 2002. Although the 2002 results are dual coded to SOC 1990 and 2000, only the SOC 2000 coded data have been revised. The original 2002 results coded to SOC 1990 have not been revised.
Survey details
The New Earnings Survey is based on a 1 per cent sample of employees in employment, information on whose earnings and hours is obtained in confidence from employers. It does not cover the self-employed. In 2003 information related to the pay period which included 9 April. The data available on Nomis relate to earners on adults rates of pay whose pay was unaffected by absence.
The earnings information collected relates to gross pay before tax, national insurance or other deductions, and excludes payments in kind. It is restricted to earnings relating to the survey pay period and so excludes payments of arrears from another period made during the survey period; any payments due as a result of a pay settlement but not yet paid at the time of the survey will also be excluded.
Resources
For further details of the survey results:
New Earnings Survey 2003 (pdf, 71KB)
ONS First Release
Labour Market Trends , December 2003
For a full description of the survey along with a copy of the questionnaire:
This is extracted from the full NES results publication (see below) so contains some references to data available in the publications but not on Nomis.
The full set of NES 2003 results publications can be downloaded from the Virtual Bookshelf section of the main National Statistics site:
Comparison with published sources
As with previous data, the results on Nomis may not exactly match those in the NES publications. The geographic data that underpin the NES figures on Nomis are based on frozen 1991 wards to allow comparisons over time, and also allow comparisons with employment and unemployment data for the same areas. Thus an employee's workplace postcode is allocated to the ward as its boundary was in 1991. Data for frozen 1991 wards are then built up into larger administrative areas on a best-fit basis.
This approach differs to that taken when the annual NES data are compiled by ONS, in that current geographic areas are generally used. In the production of the ONS NES results, an employee is allocated to the area (UA, LAD, PCA, etc.) in which the postcode currently falls. In circumstances where there have been changes in the definitions of geographic boundaries the different approach leads to differences in the estimates of pay derived from the two systems.
ONS recommends that, where differences are evident, users ensure that all references note that the Nomis estimate is based on best-fit geography. In this respect estimates produced by ONS based on current geographic boundaries will be given definitive status by National Statistics.