Belgium - Total Employment

Quarterly economic accounts form an integral part of the system of national accounts. The quarterly economic accounts constitute a coherent set of transactions, accounts and balancing items, defined in both the non-financial and financial domains, recorded on a quarterly basis.

• Framework: ESA 2010
• Activity classification: NACEBEL 2008, the localization of NACE Rev. 2
• Measurements:
  • Millions of euros at current prices (Mil. EUR)
  • At chained year-2015 prices (Mil. Ch. 2015 EUR)
  • Deflators, chained volume indexes relative to 2015 (Ch. Vol. Index 2015=100)
• Adjustments:
  • Calendar day adjusted and seasonally adjusted (CDASA)
  • Not seasonally adjusted (NSA)
• Native frequency: Quarterly
• Start date: Uniformly 1995Q1

There are three ways, usually called approaches, of calculating GDP:

• Output approach
• Expenditure approach
• Income approach.

Each approach is based on a different view of the economic system using and measuring different aggregates. Together they give a summary of the logical relationships within the system of national accounts, and they should all give the same result for GDP if each item is estimated correctly.

The output approach is based on the calculation of output and intermediate consumption of the various industries of the economy. Gross value added of an industry is defined as the difference between output (basic prices) and intermediate consumption (basic prices).

Gross value added (basic prices) = Output (basic prices) - Intermediate consumption

GDP at market prices is then calculated as the sum of gross value added (basic prices) of all industries/branches plus taxes on products less subsidies on products.

Gross value added (market prices) = Gross value added (basic prices) + Taxes on products - Subsidies on products

The expenditure approach is based on estimates of the components of final demand:

GDP = Final consumption expenditure (by households, non-profit institutions serving households -NPISHs- and the government, in purchasers. prices) + Final consumption expenditure by the government + Gross fixed capital formation (purchasers. prices) + Changes in inventories (purchasers. prices) + Exports (f.o.b.) - Imports (c.i.f.)

The income approach calculates GDP from separate estimates of the components of the value added of industries, branches or sectors:

GDP = Compensation of employees + Gross operating surplus/mixed income + Taxes on production and imports - Subsidies.

Until 2019, Statistics Belgium annually re-referenced its chained year series. The base year is the 2 year's prior (t-2) and can be found in the Mnemonic description. 

Starting 2019, it planned to re-reference every five years (2015, 2020, ...), to synchronize with Eurostat.

At IMF (SDDS):

• Real sector - National accounts