Recommended uses and limitations
Every effort has been made to ensure that data are comparable across countries. Therefore cross country comparisons of unit labour cost levels (in ratio form) can be used for static analysis (i.e. comparison of unit labour cost levels across countries or economic activities at a point in time) together with indexes which show comparable development in unit labour costs over time. However, for some countries unit labour cost levels are not presented due to a lack of data to make an adjustment for the self-employed. For these countries only unit labour cost indexes are made available for analysis. Furthermore, the adjustment for the self employed assumes that labour compensation per hour or per person is equivalent for the self employed and employees of businesses. This assumption may be more or less valid across different countries and economic activities thus affecting the comparability of unit labour cost level data.
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