Linked Employer-Employee Data on Finnish Plants for the Analysis of Productivity, Wages and Turnover

Abstract

The process of linking various registers for the analysis of Finnish plants is described and potential uses of the linked data are illustrated. Information on individuals from the Employment Statistics is matched with information on plants from the Business Register and the Industrial Statistics on the basis of plant codes. Also firm-level information from the R&D statistics and the Financial Statements Statistics is linked to the plants. Various steps in the linking are described and the quality of the matched data is evaluated. Somewhat different linking is used for creating data sets for different research purposes. One data set is a panel of manufacturing plants. Information on the average education, age, and seniority of the employees and on their turnover is linked to data on production and input use. This data can be used for the analysis of the impact of employee characteristics on productivity and for the comparison of wage and productivity profiles by age and experience. Other linked data sets have been formed for both manufacturing and service sectors plants to examine worker and job turnover simultaneously and their dependence on plant and employee characteristics.