The Commission presents its report on the on the implementation of Regulation 450/2003/EC concerning the labour cost index. After the endorsement of the Regulation, the Member States have begun to implement its requirements. Most Member States continued to develop provisional index series (which had already been disseminated for several years by Eurostat) to become final indices, whereas other countries began to consider possible alternative approaches. For some countries it was the first time they had had to develop a labour cost index.
The report shows that all necessary measures to fully comply with the Regulation have been undertaken by the Czech Republic, Denmark, Lithuania, Hungary, Portugal and Slovak Republic. Another group of Member States are fully implementing the Regulation apart from the items that are subject to the transition period. This group includes Germany, Spain, the Netherlands and Austria.
Fifteen Member States are still in a preparatory phase of the implementation of the Regulation. Six of those have agreed transitional arrangements for the full implementation of the Regulation.
The remaining items to implement the Regulation mainly concern the full breakdown of the data by economic activities, back data and the (seasonal) adjustments of the series. Producing an index in a timely manner in 70 days also requires adjustments to the production process. For some countries the search for, and testing of, the most suitable data sources is still going on.