EU quarterly labour-cost index panel (Eurostat)

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Quarterly hourly-labour-cost panel from Eurostat's official keyless dissemination API: the Labour Cost Index (2020=100), seasonally and calendar adjusted, for NACE Rev. 2 B-S, per European country and quarter — total labour costs plus the wages-and-salaries and non-wage components, with the wage-share drift since the 2020 base year, quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth, the growth gap versus the EA21 aggregate and within-quarter growth ranks. Eurostat observation flags kept verbatim; missing cells are honestly absent, never imputed, and derived metrics never bridge gaps. Who joins this: compensation-benchmarking and labour-cost models join quarterly cost growth on (geo, quarter); inflation watchers read the wage-share and the EA21 gap as unit-labour-cost pressure signals; expansion planners compare all-in hourly cost trajectories across markets. Eurostat dataset lc_lci_r2_q ('Labour cost index by NACE Rev. 2 activity - nominal value, quarterly data'). Fills the catalog's labour-cost gap: existing labour datasets track unemployment and employment levels, none track the price of labour.

Source: Eurostat Labour Cost Index Intelligence
Rows: 3,096
Columns: 14
Source cadence: Quarterly
Last refreshed: Oct 9, 2026
Theme: economy

Column	Type	Description
quarter	string	Observation quarter as YYYY-QN (1996-Q1 -> latest published); panel join key with geo. (unit: quarter)
quarter_start	date	First day of the observation quarter. (unit: date)
geo	string	Eurostat country/aggregate code (e.g. DE, FR, EU27_2020, EA21). The United Kingdom, Kosovo, Malta and the legacy euro-area aggregates (EA/EA12/EA19/EA20) are excluded per the catalog's Eurostat geo rule (Malta publishes with a permanent 2008-Q2..2010-Q1 in-span hole). (unit: string)
geo_label	string	English label for geo as published by Eurostat. (unit: string)
lci_total	float	Labour Cost Index: total hourly labour costs, 2020=100, seasonally and calendar adjusted, NACE Rev. 2 B-S. Eurostat lc_lci_r2_q, lcstruct=D1_D4_MD5. (unit: index 2020=100)
lci_total_flag	string	Eurostat observation flag for lci_total as published ('p' provisional, 'e' estimated, 'b' break in time series, ...); empty when unflagged. (unit: string)
lci_wages	float	Labour Cost Index: wages and salaries component, 2020=100, seasonally and calendar adjusted, NACE Rev. 2 B-S. Eurostat lc_lci_r2_q, lcstruct=D11. (unit: index 2020=100)
lci_nonwage	float	Labour Cost Index: non-wage component (employers' social contributions and taxes net of subsidies), 2020=100, seasonally and calendar adjusted, NACE Rev. 2 B-S. Eurostat lc_lci_r2_q, lcstruct=D12_D4_MD5. Can print negative when subsidies dominate and swings by orders of magnitude on a near-zero base (e.g. Malta ~5,700 in 2014-2018) — both are real upstream prints, not errors. (unit: index 2020=100)
wage_share_pct	float	100 * lci_wages / lci_total. The legs are separate indices (each rebased to its own 2020 level), so this is the wage share of labour costs relative to its 2020 share: >100 means wages have grown faster than total labour costs since 2020. Null where either leg is missing; never imputed. (unit: percent of 2020 wage share)
lci_qoq_pct	float	Quarter-on-quarter percent change of lci_total (exact prior quarter); null for a geo's first published quarter or when the prior quarter is missing (never bridges gaps). (unit: percent)
lci_yoy_pct	float	Year-on-year percent change of lci_total (exact same quarter of the prior year); null when that quarter is missing (never bridges gaps). (unit: percent)
ea21_gap_yoy	float	lci_yoy_pct minus the EA21 aggregate's lci_yoy_pct for the same quarter, in percentage points. Null for EA21 itself and where either side is missing. (unit: percentage points)
yoy_rank	integer	Within-quarter rank of lci_yoy_pct across kept geos (1 = fastest labour-cost growth; ties share a rank). (unit: rank)
row_hash	string	Deterministic 16-hex sha256 of quarter + geo + the raw total index value and flag (idempotency key). (unit: string)

First 10 sample rows — a preview, not the complete dataset.

quarter	quarter_start	geo	geo_label	lci_total	lci_total_flag	lci_wages	lci_nonwage	wage_share_pct	lci_qoq_pct	lci_yoy_pct	ea21_gap_yoy	yoy_rank	row_hash
2009-Q1	2009-01-01	AT	Austria	71.6	—	72.4	68.7	101.117	—	—	—	—	a1dffe1ba44b140a
2009-Q2	2009-04-01	AT	Austria	71.3	—	72	68.9	100.982	-0.419	—	—	—	9006ac5eade80134
2009-Q3	2009-07-01	AT	Austria	70.9	—	71.6	68.7	100.987	-0.561	—	—	—	19592b72aa88ed1d
2009-Q4	2009-10-01	AT	Austria	72.2	—	73	69.6	101.108	1.834	—	—	—	b85282f91923ec2e
2010-Q1	2010-01-01	AT	Austria	72.4	—	73	70.3	100.829	0.277	1.117	—	21	f95195f36620691f
2010-Q2	2010-04-01	AT	Austria	72.5	—	73.2	70.4	100.966	0.138	1.683	—	13	78310900bb5fcc57
2010-Q3	2010-07-01	AT	Austria	73	—	73.5	71	100.685	0.69	2.962	—	8	fd90c0f2094e1ae4
2010-Q4	2010-10-01	AT	Austria	75.1	—	75.7	73.2	100.799	2.877	4.017	—	7	dd63624faf24a8ff
2011-Q1	2011-01-01	AT	Austria	73	—	73.6	71	100.822	-2.796	0.829	-1.244	27	c40226dbafdc5984
2011-Q2	2011-04-01	AT	Austria	74.3	—	74.8	72.4	100.673	1.781	2.483	0.174	18	311079adbfcd5977

Profiled Oct 9, 2026 from snapshot 20261009T143015Z-7f09ad3d89d0

Measured

Completeness: 96.4%
Rows: 3,096
Columns: 14
Columns with gaps: 7

Rows per yearquarter_start · 1996–2026 · 31 years

19962026

Column	Missing	Distinct	Range	Distribution
quartervarchar	0%	139	—	2011-Q132 2011-Q232 2011-Q332
quarter_startdate	0%	136	Jan 1, 1996 → Apr 1, 2026	—
geovarchar	0%	35	—	DE122 NO122 NL110
geo_labelvarchar	0%	31	—	Germany122 Norway122 Netherlands110
lci_totaldouble	0.39%	1,123	5.8 → 205.2median 87.8	59 outside 1st–99th percentile
lci_total_flagvarchar	0.39%	3	—	2,487 p594 b3
lci_wagesdouble	0%	1,161	4.2 → 203.3median 86.85	62 outside 1st–99th percentile
lci_nonwagedouble	0%	1,386	-2.7 → 984.9median 93.1	62 outside 1st–99th percentile
wage_share_pctdouble	0.39%	3,282	72.41 → 110.22median 99.47	62 outside 1st–99th percentile
lci_qoq_pctdouble	1.4%	2,442	-10.83 → 15.28median 0.9277	62 outside 1st–99th percentile
lci_yoy_pctdouble	4.5%	3,122	-12.99 → 51.72median 3.75	60 outside 1st–99th percentile
ea21_gap_yoydouble	38.2%	1,809	-13.85 → 17.27median 0.858	40 outside 1st–99th percentile
yoy_rankbigint	4.5%	30	1 → 32median 15
row_hashvarchar	0%	3,595	—	000493e3bcfc287e1 001277c4eb8e4bcf1 003c727d44bc52371

Point any LLM at the metadata endpoint — the documentation above is machine-readable too (JSON-LD + Croissant).

cURL

curl "https://datazimuts.com/v1/datasets/eurostat_lci_intel/eu_labour_cost_index_quarterly" | jq '{title, rows, columns_count, license}'

Python

import requests

ds = requests.get("https://datazimuts.com/v1/datasets/eurostat_lci_intel/eu_labour_cost_index_quarterly").json()
print(ds["title"], ds["rows"], "rows")

# Sample rows for an LLM context window
for row in ds.get("sample_rows", [])[:5]:
    print(row)

API endpoint: https://datazimuts.com/v1/datasets/eurostat_lci_intel/eu_labour_cost_index_quarterly

Tip: fetch /llms.txt for the full machine-readable catalog.

Cite this snapshot

Pinned to snapshot 20261009T143015Z-7f09ad3d89d0 and its content hash, so readers get exactly the data you used.

APA

Eurostat Labour Cost Index Intelligence. (2026). EU quarterly labour-cost index panel (Eurostat) [Data set, snapshot 20261009T143015Z-7f09ad3d89d0, sha256 7f09ad3d89d0]. Datazimuts. Retrieved 2026-10-10, from https://datazimuts.com/en/datasets/eurostat_lci_intel/eu_labour_cost_index_quarterly?snapshot=20261009T143015Z-7f09ad3d89d0

BibTeX

@misc{dz_eurostat_lci_intel_eu_labour_cost_index__7f09ad3d,
  title        = {{EU quarterly labour-cost index panel (Eurostat)}},
  author       = {{Eurostat Labour Cost Index Intelligence}},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Datazimuts},
  howpublished = {\url{https://datazimuts.com/en/datasets/eurostat_lci_intel/eu_labour_cost_index_quarterly?snapshot=20261009T143015Z-7f09ad3d89d0}},
  note         = {Snapshot 20261009T143015Z-7f09ad3d89d0, sha256 7f09ad3d89d0248dbbf8e93dc968a5febb742c98712fcdece097bb6180e773c0; accessed 2026-10-10}
}

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<iframe src="https://datazimuts.com/embed/chart?dataset=eurostat_lci_intel%2Feu_labour_cost_index_quarterly&lang=en&theme=auto&snapshot=20261009T143015Z-7f09ad3d89d0&x=quarter&y=lci_total&agg=avg" title="EU quarterly labour-cost index panel (Eurostat)" width="100%" height="380" style="border:0" loading="lazy"></iframe>