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Relative share of GDP which accrues to workers as compared to the share which accrues to capital in a given reference period.

This indicator seeks to inform about the relative share of GDP which accrues to workers as compared to the share which accrues to capital in a given reference period. In order to interpret this indicator effectively, it is important to consider it together with economic growth trends. The share of labour compensation in national output can highlight the extent to which economic growth translates into higher incomes for employees over time (and/or higher earnings for the self-employed). In periods of economic recession, the labour income share provides an indication of the extent to which falling output reduces labour income relative to profits. If labour income falls at a greater rate than profits, the labour income share will be expected to fall. By contrast, if there is a sharper decline in profits than in labour income, the share will rise. For any given level of GDP and profits, the labour income share can fall as a result of falling wages, falling earnings of the self-employed, changes in the composition of employment by income or a combination these.

Statistical Institute of Belize (SIB)

Labour Department

Statistical Institute of Belize (SIB)

Labour Department

Annual

Percentage (%)

Increased production and GDP often lead to improved living standards of individuals in the economy, but this will depend on the distribution of real income and public policy among other factors. If there is a large number of non-resident border or seasonal workers or inflows and outflows of property income such that the value of production differs from the income of residents, there may be a situation of over or understating the living standards of residents.

Compensation of employees is the total in-cash or in-kind remuneration payable to the employee by the enterprise for the work performed by the employee during the accounting period. Compensation of employees includes: (i) wages and salaries (in cash or in kind) and (ii) social insurance contributions payable by employers. This concept views compensation of employees as a cost to employer, thus compensation equals zero for unpaid work undertaken voluntarily. Moreover, it does not include taxes payable by employers on the wage and salary bill, such as payroll tax.

Gross domestic product (GDP) represents the market value of all final goods and services produced during a specific time period (for the purposes of this indicator, one year) in a country's territory.

Persons in employment are defined as all those who, during a short reference period, such as one week or one day, performed work for others in exchange for pay or profit. Persons in employment include employees and self-employed.

Employees are all those workers who hold the type of job defined as paid employment jobs, that is, jobs where the incumbents hold explicit or implicit employment contracts giving them a basic remuneration not directly dependent on the revenue of the unit for which they work.

No disaggregation is required for this indicator.

This indicator can be calculated using the following formula:

Labour share of Gross Domestic Product = Total compensation of employees / Gross Domestic Product * 100.

This indicator helps the Statistical Institute of Belize through the Labour Force Survey to monitor the relative share of output which is paid as compensation to employees as compared with the share paid to capital in the production process for a given reference period.

In general, labour share in GDP calculated based only on the compensation of employees will underestimate the proportion of GDP accrued to total employment, as it does not include the labour income of the self-employed. Thus, the indicator calculated in such a way may be less relevant in countries where a large proportion of employment is in self-employment.

All the metadata shown in this document was gathered from United Nation Statistics Division. The metadata was extracted from https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/metadata/.