The National Statistics Office last week published the data relative to the household budgetary survey it conducted between 2000 and 2001. Two considerations need to be made in relation to this document.

First this is an important tool for policy makers as it provides data on what we spend our money on and analyses our expenditure with a number of demographic variables as well as other factors such as ownership of household goods. In fact, the data it provides is very extensive and should prove to be useful to public sector organisations as well as private businesses.

This brings us to a second consideration. When the National Statistics Office was being set up as a semi-autonomous organisation, doubts had been expressed about the appropriateness of such a decision.

The quality of the work being produced by the NSO and the new ground that it has broken over the last few years, in the provision of economic and social data, proves the correctness of the government's decision to set up the NSO. The continued provision of this data, in accordance with EU standards, should eventually create a mass of information that would help us obtain a deeper insight of our economy and society at large.

Focussing on the data as such, one needs to appreciate that this is a survey, which therefore has a margin of error. Moreover, what we have in this publication is an aggregation of data, even if broken down by a number of variables, and such aggregation would always hide specific cases.

Therefore, the information provided has to be viewed from a macro level rather than from a micro level. We also have to take into account that from a total of 6,798 sampled households, 2,586 participated in the survey.

So what we have is data about these odd 2,500 households; the extent to which the households that were sampled and did not participate in the survey, may have biased the result, will always remain an unknown factor. However, this is an issue that is not pertinent only to the NSO. It is equally pertinent to all organisations conducting surveys.

As I already mentioned, the data is very extensive and so this contribution shall focus on just a few issues. One piece of data that immediately hit the headlines on the publication of the survey was that there were 9,000 persons who claimed that they were working on a definite contract, or were in temporary employment or were working occasionally with no employment contract. This represents 6.5 per cent of those who are in employment and some judged it to be an indication of a high element of job insecurity.

Probably these commentators forget that any employee working in an organisation that has a high dependency on satisfied customers for the continuation of its activity, is in effect on a definite contract of employment.

It is not the employer that gives a definite contract of employment but the customer and job security depends totally on the extent to which businesses manage to satisfy their customers. Whether having 6.5 per cent of persons in a job not being on an indefinite contract of employment is too high, or too low, or just about reasonable, has to be viewed from the perspective of our economy, which depends highly on exporting activities.

The more dependent our economy is on exporting activities and the more unstable the international markets are, the more volatile the employment situation may be.

So the issue is not providing everyone with an indefinite contract of employment but supporting employment through policies that create economic, social and political stability, which is what membership of the European Union is all about.

Another set of data emerging from the survey is the average household disposable income. This was estimated to be around Lm8,200, with Lm4,915 (59.9 per cent of disposable income) being net salary, Lm1,386 (16.9 per cent) being interests and dividends and Lm1,393 (17 per cent) being social benefits.

There is an element of geographic imbalance in terms of disposable income, with the southern part of the island evidently having a lower disposable income than those living in the northern part of the island.

The survey also provided data on home ownership and the ownership of household goods. A total of 73 per cent of households live in own accommodation, with 58 per cent of households interviewed claiming to be living in their own house and having no outstanding loan. An international comparison might show this percentage to be one of the highest in Europe.

In effect, with 17 per cent of average total disposable income coming from interests and dividends (therefore income from accumulated wealth) and with just under six in 10 households living in their own home (in itself the main investment one makes in one's lifetime) that is fully paid for, the survey suggests that the average Maltese household (if it can be said to exist) has a level of wealth that is not insignificant.

The level of ownership of household goods is another indicator of the level of wealth of the Maltese. Again, it needs to be said that aggregate data hides the wide divergences that may exist between the "haves" and the "have nots".

The survey shows that on average, every household has access to a cooker, a water heater, a fridge, a washing machine and a TV set. There are some appliances where ownership is still very low, like in the case of a tumble dryer, a DVD or a satellite dish antenna.

Then there is a group of household goods, where ownership is restricted to about a third of the population. These are a personal computer, an air conditioning system, a microwave oven and a freezer.

However, the main purpose of the Household Budgetary Survey is to obtain information on the expenditure pattern of the Maltese.

And it is here that we get a number of interesting findings. That food, beverages and tobacco represent the main item of expenditure should be no surprise. These products account for just under 24 per cent of a household's average annual expenditure.

The next item is transport and communication, taking up 19 per cent of total annual expenditure, with cars and expenditure related to cars on their own accounting for 14 per cent of annual expenditure.

There are then a number of groups of products and services that each takes up a bit more or a bit less than 10 per cent of annual expenditure.

The item that takes up the least percentage of total annual expenditure is healthy with three per cent. This pattern of expenditure reflects the change that is taking place in our society, with more money being spent in relative terms on items that in the past were not considered as necessities.

This assessment is admittedly a very partial one, and probably one needs to go deeper on each of the items covered by the survey to understand better the expenditure pattern of the Maltese household.

The overall indication that one gets from this survey is a positive one, with a Maltese household that has accumulated wealth over the years, that is earning a sustainable level of income and that has a spending behaviour that reflects the economic development of the country.