Business demography indicators on active enterprises, enterprise births and deaths, survival of newly born enterprises and high-growth enterprises are prepared by CZSO according to common Eurostat and OECD methodology. The obligation to collect these data and provide them to Eurostat is laid down in the Regulation (EC) No 295/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 2008 concerning structural business statistics.

Data sources

1)   Statistical business register of CZSO (see https://www.czso.cz/csu/res/business_register),

2)   Annual Structural business statistics (SBS) survey – from the reference year 2016 till now.

Statistical population

The economic activities covered by business demography indicators are CZ-NACE rev.2 sections B to N and P to S excluding K642. High-growth enterprises cover all CZ-NACE rev.2 Sections B to N and division S95. Thus, activities relating to industry, construction, distributive trades and services are covered, but agriculture, fishery, forestry, public administration, defence, compulsory social security, activities of membership organisations, activities of households as employers and extra-territorial organisations and bodies are not. At present, indicators include market producers and exclude units in the central and local government sectors, non-profit sector, non–resident sector, housing cooperatives and homeowners associations.  

Detailed information on CZ-NACE rev. 2 is available at:
https://www.czso.cz/csu/czso/klasifikace_ekonomickych_cinnosti_cz_nace (only in Czech).

Definitions

The enterprise statistical unit is the smallest combination of legal units that is an organisational unit producing goods or services, which benefits from a certain degree of autonomy in decision-making, especially for the allocation of its current resources. An enterprise carries out one or more activities at one or more locations. An enterprise may be a sole legal unit. The legal and natural persons (entrepreneurs) registered in the statistical business register are considered to be legal units.

Active enterprises include all enterprises that have any turnover and/or employment in the period from 1st January to 31st December in a given year.

Enterprise births amounts to the creation of a combination of production factors with the restriction that no other enterprises are involved in the event. Births do not include entries into the population due to mergers, break-ups, split-off or restructuring of a set of enterprises. It does not include entries into a sub-population resulting only from a change of activity. A birth occurs when an enterprise starts from scratch and actually starts activity. An enterprise creation can be considered an enterprise birth if new production factors, in particular new jobs are created. If a dormant unit is reactivated within two years, this event is not considered a birth.

The enterprise birth rate is the number of births as a percentage of the population of active enterprises.

Enterprise deaths amounts to the dissolution of a combination of production factors with the restriction that no other enterprises are involved in the event. Deaths do not include exits from the population due to mergers, take-overs, break-ups or restructuring of a set of enterprises. It does not include exits from a sub-population resulting only from a change of activity. An enterprise is included in the count of deaths only if it is not reactivated within two years. Equally, a reactivation within two years is not counted as a birth.

The enterprise death rate is the number of deaths as a percentage of the population of active enterprises.

Survival occurs if an enterprise is active in terms of employment and/or turnover in the year of birth and the following year(s). Two types of survival can be distinguished:

1. An enterprise born in year xx is considered to have survived in year xx+1 if it is active in terms of turnover and/or employment in any part of year xx+1 (= survival without changes).

2. An enterprise is also considered to have survived if the linked legal unit(s) have ceased to be active, but their activity has been taken over by a new legal unit set up specifically to take over the factors of production of that enterprise (= survival by take-over).

Survival is followed five years after enterprise birth.

Enterprise survival rate is the number of enterprises that were born in year xx-n and survived to year xx as a percentage of all enterprises born in year xx-n.

High-growth enterprise is an enterprise with average annualised growth in number of employees greater than 10 % per year over a three-year period (t – 3 to t) and having at least 10 employees in the beginning of the growth (t – 3).

Young high-growth enterprises are high-growth enterprises that are up to five years old.

Rate of high-growth enterprises is the number of high-growth enterprises as a percentage of the total population of active enterprises with at least 10 employees.

Periodicity

Annual

According to the Regulation (EC) No 295/2008 and its implementing regulation (EU) No 439/2014 the annual data on active, birth and survival enterprises, preliminary (estimated) death enterprise and high-growth enterprises are sent to Eurostat within 18 months after reference period. In addition, data on death enterprises are sent within 30 months after reference period and final data on death enterprises excluding reactivations are sent within 42 months after reference period.

Breakdowns

International comparability

The business demography statistics are compiled by all EU countries according to Commission Regulation (EC) No 251/2009 of 11 March 2009 implementing and amending Regulation (EC) No 295/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards the series of data to be produced for structural business statistics and the adaptations necessary after the revision of the statistical classification of products by activity (CPA) and methodology laid down in the Eurostat-OECD Manual on Business Demography Statistics. Although all EU countries more closely follow the above mentioned regulation and manual some differences stemming from the data sources can occur that restrict the data comparability across countries. Different administrative sources depending on national law, as well as surveys, are used to update the business registers. More importantly, the presence of different size thresholds in business registers may have a substantial impact on comparability especially on data for start-ups. Business demography data on EU countries are available at the web page of Eurostat (see Structural Business Statistics).

Furthermore, the business demography data are produced by some non-EU countries (Canada, South Korea, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Norway or Switzerland). These countries also follow the methodology laid down in the Eurostat-OECD Manual on Business Demography Statistics. The data are available at the web page of OECD (see https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=SDBS_BDI_ISIC4).

Methodological comparability with other indicators

By the reference year 2015, the indicator on number of active enterprises calculated by the Business demography is not comparable with the same indicator calculated by SBS statistics. This was due to using different data sources for production of this indicator. From the reference year 2016 both indicators on active enterprises are based on the data from SBS survey.

Business demography data are not comparable with the indicators compiled by Organisational statistics (see https://www.czso.cz/csu/czso/organizacni-statistika-1-ctvrtleti-2022 - only in Czech). The reason is that business demography statistics are based on the statistical unit – Enterprise while Organisational statistics use legal units.

Backward corrections and revisions

At present, there are no backward corrections and revisions.

In the case of indicators on enterprise deaths, a two-year lag is foreseen in the methodology in order to confirm whether a presumed death is in fact reactivated. For this reason, information on final deaths is generally available later than the stock of active enterprises and enterprise births. As a result only preliminary (estimated) data on enterprise deaths are sent 18 months after reference period. The data on enterprise deaths are available in the next year (30 months after reference period) and final data on enterprise death excluding reactivations are sent to Eurostat 42 months after reference period as a revised data.