Information Note: Earnings and Labour Costs Q1 2026 Introduction of NACE Rev. 2.1

CSO publication, 26 May 2025, 11am

Information Note: Earnings and Labour Costs Q1 2026 Introduction of NACE Rev. 2.1

Introduction - What is NACE?

NACE is the standard statistical classification of economic activities used across the European Union for classifying economic activities.
The term NACE is derived from the French for Nomenclature of Economic Activities (NACE) and it groups organisations, companies, and people by their business activity to provide consistent statistics on production, employment, and national accounts across Europe. 
The CSO submits data to Eurostat using NACE classifications.

What is NACE Rev. 2.1?

Since the last version of NACE, NACE Rev. 2, was published in 2006, the European economy has evolved significantly, leading to a need to update the NACE classification. NACE Rev. 2.1 has introduced new concepts at all levels of the classification and has restructured a number of the existing headings. At the same time, major efforts have been made to maintain the structure of the classification in areas that did not explicitly require change based on new concepts.

NACE Rev. 2.1 implementation in the Earnings and Labour Costs Survey

From Q1 2026 onwards the CSO Earnings and Labour Costs Survey will begin to be published using NACE Rev. 2.1. as the primary classification of industrial sectors. Estimates using NACE Rev. 2.0. will no longer be published in the statistical publication but will still be published for reference year 2026 on our PxStat. NACE Rev. 2.1. was backcast to reference year 2018 to allow for time series analysis and seasonally adjusted estimation. See Table 2 List of New NACE Rev. 2.1 and Existing NACE Rev. 2.0 PxStat tables.

What changes are there in the Earnings and Labour Costs Survey

NACE Rev. 2.1 entails several changes, including a number of new positions to reflect emerging forms of economic activity. Structurally, the most obvious change is that the previous Section J “Information and Communication” is now being split into two separate sections: Section J for “Publishing, broadcasting, and content production and distribution activities” and Section K for “Telecommunication, computer programming, consulting, computing infrastructure and other information service activities”. Table 1 below shows Average Weekly Earnings Quarter 1 2026 Preliminary Estimates for NACE Rev. 2.0 and NACE Rev. 2.1. It shows that the largest change was in NACE G Wholesale & Retail Trade. Under NACE Rev. 2.1, those involved in the repair of repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles are now classified in S-T Arts, sports, recreation and other service activities.

There are many other changes seen across all the lower structural levels of the classification (Division, Group and Class levels). Conceptually, significant changes occurred with the introduction of new concepts at all levels, revised rules for outsourcing and with the treatment of intermediation activities. See the NACE Rev. 2.1 changes FAQs webpage for further information on what to expect as the CSO moves to the new version of NACE.