Occupied posts and job vacancies

Data on occupied and vacant posts provide information on the level and structure of labour demand.

They are also used to recalculate the average number of employees into full-time equivalents, thus ensuring that figures for employees working different workloads are comparable.

Since 2021 the data are calculated according to the results of the administrative-territorial reform held in 2021.

Data are compiled, calculated and published using:

• Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community, Revision 2 (NACE Rev. 2);
• Classification of Administrative Territories and Territorial Units of the Republic of Latvia (ATVK 2021)*;
• Nomenclature of territorial units for statistic (NUTS 2024)**;
• Latvian Classification of Occupations, which is based on the International Standard Classification of Occupations 2008 (ISCO-08);
• Classification of Institutional Sectors;
• CSB typological classification of statistical units (SVTK).

* For data up to 2021, Classification of Administrative Territories and Territorial Units (ATVK) in force at the time of data collection, was used.

**For data up to 2023, NUTS 2021 classification was applied. More information on NUTS.

Information is compiled for all branches of national economy. Data by kind of economic activity are presented based on the main activity of the statistical unit; however the figures include all activities carried out by the unit. An exception applies to the centralized accountancies of local governments, which submit data separately for the following activities:

• Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply;
• Public administration and defence; compulsory social security;
• Education;
• Residential care activities;
• Social work activities without accommodation;
• Creative, arts and entertainment activities;
• Libraries, archives, museums and other cultural activities;
• Cleaning activities

Central and local government bodies, state- and municipal-owned enterprises, private companies, sole proprietors, foundations, associations, and funds employing at least one person.

Target population consists of all statistical units ­– central and local government bodies, state- and municipal-owned enterprises, private companies, sole proprietors, foundations, associations, and funds employing at least one person – that were economically active.

The target population of the survey does not include:

• religious organisations;
• agricultural holdings and fish farms;
• rural handicraft businesses;
• family businesses;
• natural persons engaged in economic activity.

Statistical units whose economic activity is classified under NACE Rev. 2 codes beginning with 97 or 98 are also excluded from the target population. 

The breakdown by territorial unit is based on the address of the company’s registered office.

Data on occupied posts and average number of employees in full-time work units are available at sub-national level, in the following territorial breakdowns:

• Latvia,
• regions,
• State cities,
• municipalities.

Data on job vacancies are available at national level.

Data on occupied posts are available since 2005.

Data on job vacancies are available since 2008, with the breakdowns by sector, main occupational group, and region available since 2016.

Starting from the first quarter of 2021, the number of occupied posts has been calculated using data from the State Revenue Service, resulting in a break in the time-series.

Not applicable

Number of occupied posts.

• year
• quarter

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Confidentiality of the information provided is protected by Statistics Law: 

Section 7. Competence of the Statistical Institution in Production of Official Statistics

• (2) The statistical institution shall:
• 8) ensure statistical confidentiality in accordance with the procedures laid down in this Law;

Section 17. Data Processing and Statistical Confidentiality

Section 19. Dissemination of Official Statistics

• (1) The statistical institution shall disseminate official statistics in a way that does not allow either directly or indirectly identify a private individual or a State institution in cases other than those laid down in Section 25 of this Law.
• (2) The statistical institution shall publish the official statistics which have been produced within the framework of the Official Statistics Programme in a publicly available form and by a predetermined deadline on the portal of official statistics. Until the moment of publication of official statistics this statistics shall not be published.

Confidential cells in business statistics are defined by using minimum frequency rule (n) and dominance criterion (n, k).

A cell in a table is considered safe if there are at least four contributors (respondents, n=4) and the share of the largest contributor in the total cell value does not exceed 80 % (1.80) or the share of two largest contributors in the total cell value does not exceed 90 % (2.90).

All official statistics are published according to the advance dissemination calendar, at 13:00.

Advance dissemination calendar

Statistical release dates and times are pre-announced in the data dissemination calendar.

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Press releases on this subject are published on a quarterly basis.

Annual publication Earnings and Labour Costs (in Latvian).

Statistics database

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To achieve high user satisfaction and ensure compliance with regulatory requirements, the CSB has introduced a Quality Management System (QMS). The system defines and, at the procedural level, describes processes of statistical production and identifies the persons responsible for their monitoring throughout all production stages. Its structure follows the principles of the Generic Statistical Business Process Model (GSBPM).

The QMS sets out the sequence in which processes are implemented – that is, the activities to be performed, including verifications of processes and produced statistics, the order and implementation requirements of these activities, and the persons responsible for their execution. It also defines the approach to evaluating production processes and their outcomes, and to implementing necessary improvements.

The CSB quality management system is certified to the ISO 9001:2015 standard Quality management systems — Requirements since 2018 (scope of certification: development, production and dissemination of official statistics). The original certification audit was performed by BM Trada Latvija SIA and a recertification audit, in 2024, was performed by Bureau Veritas Latvia SIA.

The CSB information security management system is certified to the ISO/IEC 27001:2022 standard Information security, cybersecurity and privacy protection — Information security management systems — Requirements since 2017 (scope of certification: collection, processing and storage of information and data for functions of the Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia. Provision of statistical information for inland and foreign users). The original certification audit was performed by BM Certification SIA and a recertification audit, in 2024, was performed by Bureau Veritas Latvia SIA.

The quality of statistics is assessed in accordance with the existing requirements of both external and internal regulatory enactments, as well as the established quality criteria.

Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European statistics stipulates that European statistics shall be developed, produced and disseminated on the basis of uniform standards and harmonised methods. In this context, the following quality criteria shall apply: relevance, accuracy, timeliness, punctuality, accessibility, clarity, comparability and coherence.

As the national statistical institute and the principal authority of the national statistical system, the CSB has set common general institutional-level quality requirements for authorities responsible for producing or providing national statistics. These requirements are based on the European Statistics Code of Practice, which comprises 16 principles.

The overall assessment of data quality is good.

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CSB aims to produce reliable statistics, which serve as a basis for analysing socio-economic trends and informing decisions. Feedback on data quality can be sent by the e-mail to pasts@csp.gov.lv

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Quality indicators are calculated at the end of each year. Coefficients for previous years are available in the Eurostat metadata section.

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Eurostat (statistical office of the European Union) is responsible for publishing high-quality Europe-wide statistics and indicators that enable comparisons between countries and regions. Statistics for earnings is available in the Eurostat database, in section Labour market / Job vacancies.

Data on occupied posts are available since 2005.

Data on job vacancies are available since 2008, with the breakdowns by sector, main occupational group, and region available since 2016.

Starting from the first quarter of 2021, the number of occupied posts has been calculated using data from the State Revenue Service, resulting in a break in the time-series.

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Internal coherence is achieved through systematic validation procedures and internal checks.

In line with the strategic directions of the European Statistics System and latest trends in statistical production, continuous use of information acquired in regular CSB surveys and proportionate reduction of the response burden are among the key CSB priorities.

In cooperation with holders of administrative data and in line with the competences provided for in the Statistics Law, CSB is striving to solve the issues related to the use of administrative data sources, thus aiming to acquire as comprehensive and high-quality administrative data allowing to reduce response burden on enterprises and households as possible.

CSB measures to improve use of administrative data and reduce response burden taken in 2024 (in Latvian only).

Revision Policy is an important component of good governance practice addressed more and more often in the international statistical society. The objective of the Revision Policy is to lay down the order of review or revision of the prepared and published data. The first chapter of the present document explains the terms applied in the Revision Policy, the second chapter shortly characterises the CSB Revision Policy, whereas the third chapter stipulates the revision cycle of the statistical data produced by the CSB.

Revision policy guidelines 08.09.2022 (PDF, 597 KB)

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Information is acquired by compiling questionnaires developed by the CSB – quarterly statistical reports on activities of merchants, state and local government budgetary institutions, foundations, associations and funds (2-Labour, 2-Labour-municipalities, 2-Labour (short)), and administrative data.

Statistical report form 2-Labour (short) is submitted by individual merchants, foundations, associations and funds employing 10–99 persons. Form 2-Labour-municipalities submitted by local governments and municipal institutions. All other statistical units included in the sample submit statistical report form 2-Labour.

Administrative data are acquired from reports on employees submitted by employers to the State Revenue Service from the Report on state social security compulsory payments from employee income, Income Tax and Business Risk State Duty during the reference month, from the Report regarding the employment income, personal income tax and state mandatory social insurance contributions of the payers of the income tax for seasonal farm workers and from Micro-enterprise Tax Declaration.

Quarterly.

In 2025, about 5.3 thousand respondents are surveyed quarterly.

Central and local government bodies, commercial companies with central or local government capital participation of 50% or more, and all private sector businesses with 100 or more employees are surveyed fully. Other statistical units are surveyed using a simple random sampling method, with strata pre-defined by economic activity and enterprise size (based on the number of employees). In addition, all general government sector units – that is, every unit with an institutional sector classification code starting with S13 – are included in the sample, regardless of any other criteria.

The sampling frame was built using information from the CSB Statistical Business Register on economically active units. At the time the sample was drawn, the frame included all statistical units meeting the target population criteria ­– a total of 100 594 units.

*SVTK – CSB typological classification of statistical units.

Validation rules have been developed to keep track of the primary data submitted by respondents.

Information on job vacancies and occupied posts is obtained from the statistical reports and starting with the 1st quarter of 2021 State Revenue Service data are also used in the calculation of occupied posts.

Data on the year are acquired as mean indicator, which is calculated from occupied posts and job vacancies shown at the end of each quarter of the reference year.

The information obtained from the respondents is summarized with the help of weights set for the each sample unit. Report indicators multiplied with the weights firstly are summed at class (4-digit), group (3-digit), division (2-digit) and section (letter) level in compliance with NACE Rev. 2.

To calculate job vacancy rate, job vacancies are divided by total number of jobs (sum of occupied posts and job vacancies).

The statistics for the general government sector is produced based on the Cabinet Regulations No 1456 on classification of institutional sectors where state institutions also include state social insurance institutions (code S13 04 00). The list of general government institutions and bodies is available in the annex to the regulations and Classification of Institutional Sectors.

As of the first quarter of 2025, data compilation is based fully on the enterprise definition.

The enterprise 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.

Average number of employees in full-time units is calculated separately for full-time and part-time employees, for whom wages and salaries were calculated, and result is summed. Out of the full-time employees only those who were not in labour relations for full month are recalculated in full-time units, and it is done by using information on hours paid of such employees indicated in the reports. Part-time employees in full-time units are recalculated as follows: number of hours paid of part-time employees is divided by number of hours paid of full-time employees, and the result is multiplied with the number of full-time employees.

With an aim to estimate imputations of non-responding and directly not surveyed statistical units and credibility of data acquired by using weights, summaries of job vacancy data are analysed each quarter. Summary indicators are compared with previous periods and administrative data sources.

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The Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia performs seasonal adjustment in accordance with the European Statistical System (ESS) seasonal adjustment guidelines.

Software used: JDemetra+
Method used: TRAMO/SEATS

A time series is a sequence of observations collected at regular time intervals, for example, a monthly /quarterly time series. It characterises indicator changes or development thereof.  Seasonality and calendar effects are present in a large number of economic time series.

Seasonality or seasonal fluctuations of time series are those movements, which recur with similar intensity in the same season each year. Seasonally adjusted data do not include seasonal fluctuations and calendar effects, so it is possible to compare, for example, current quarterly data with previous quarterly data.

Calendar effects cover influence of calendar on time series. It is the number of different working days in months /quarters; distribution of days of the week; the impact of the leap year on changes of the indicator. The Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia uses Latvian specific calendar regressors, which are calculated in accordance with the Law on Holidays, Remembrance and Celebration Days and JDemetra+ documentation. Calendar adjustment is performed only for those time series for which the calendar effect is statistically significant and economically explainable. Calendar adjusted data do not include calendar effects and are used to compare, for example, data for the current quarter with data for the corresponding quarter of the previous year.

Revisions are expected when new data are added to the time series, as the whole seasonally adjusted time series is recalculated. Once a year, the time series models are reviewed - that is, the models are checked for compliance with the time series and the time series models are improved if necessary. Larger data revisions are potentially expected for the next month or quarter after the model review.