Regional key figures; National Accounts

Table explanation

Description topics

Compensation of employees

Compensation of employees is the total remuneration paid by employers to their employees in return for work done. Employees are all residents and non-residents working in a paid job. Managing directors of limited companies are considered to be employees;
therefore their salaries are also included in the compensation of employees. The same holds for people working in sheltered workshops. Compensation of employees is distinguished between wages and salaries and employers' social contributions.
Wages and salaries include income taxes and employees' social contributions even if they are actually withheld by the employer and paid directly to tax authorities, social security schemes and pension schemes.
Wages include payments that are periodically and directly paid to employees. Besides they contain extra's (such as bonuses, overtime pay, tips, commission), wages in kind (such as free housing, free food, 'company car', day nursery, lower interest rates on mortgages, free travel (or at reduced prices) and holiday allowances. Furthermore, certain refunds for costs made by the employee, such as travel expenses to and from work, are included as well.
Employers' social contributions consist of payments to insurers made by employers for the benefit of their employees. They can be classified in employers' social security contributions, employers' private social contributions (o.w. pension schemes) and the imputed social contributions. In most cases the employers directly pay the employers' social contributions to the insurers. However, to show that these contributions are paid for the benefit of employees, these payments are recorded as two transactions: a) employers pay employers' social contributions to their employees, and
b) employees pay the same contributions to social insurance funds.