Wholesale and retail trade, commission trade, accommodation and food service activities

Trade includes all enterprises whose value added is exclusively or predominantly generated by the trading of goods. Domestic trade comprises the economic branches of retail trade, wholesale trade and commission trade as well as the sale, maintenance and repair of motor vehicles.
In all of these branches and in the accommodation and food service activities, monthly and yearly surveys are taken on the basis of representative samples.
The results of the monthly statistical surveys throw light on cyclical trends in turnover and the number of employees (see economic indicators). Results are available free of charge in xls or pdf format or in the form of customised tables. The yearly surveys describe the structure of enterprises in domestic trade and the accommodation and food service activities and provide free information on the business activity in the past business year. These surveys cover, among other things, the number of active persons, the wages and salaries paid, investment and turnover by kind of economic activity. On this basis it is possible to calculate operational indicators such as productivity figures (turnover per employee) for the various branches.

• On the need to revise the monthly results of wholesale and retail trade
• Glossary of important terms of statistics on domestic trade and the accommodation and food service activities