The transposition into national law of Directive 2013/34/EU on the annual financial statements of companies, expected by no later than July 2015, could alter the statistical obligations on small firms in connection with the filing of their annual accounts. In any case, the social balance sheet can no longer form an integral part of their accounts. Nevertheless, it contains original information whose usefulness is highlighted, on the basis of the social balance sheets for 2012, by examining the individual behaviour of firms and how that behaviour varies according to the firms’ size. The analysis reveals wide variations in the specialisation and location of firms according to their size : small and very small firms, active mainly in trade and transport, construction and industry, are decidedly regional. Their workforce is generally more homogenous than that of larger firms : there is less gender diversity, and they employ fewer graduates. They also display greater uniformity of working arrangements and employment contracts. The annual working time is longer on average in small and very small firms, but there are greater variations in individual practice. On the other hand, their hourly labour costs are lower on average than those of large firms. It is also shown that, even though the proportion of training firms is lower among small entities, the level of their training indicators is not systematically lower. Employment contracted slightly between the end of 2012 and the end of 2013. The workforce declined in all three of Belgium’s Regions and in almost all branches of activity; nonetheless, there was a clear increase in the staff registered in the “health and social work” and “business services” branches. In firms that file full-format accounts, the use of temp agency staff declined considerably in 2013. They also recorded larger numbers of staff leaving than in the previous year owing to a rise in the number of expiring temporary contracts and redundancies; conversely, there were fewer spontaneous departures. The proportion of workers receiving formal training expanded, but there was a decline in the rate of participation in informal and initial training. Similarly, the volume of hours devoted to training was up in the case of formal training but down in the other two cases. The indicator of the financial effort devoted to training declined because the formal and informal training budgets did not keep pace with the rise in staff costs, and there was a reduction in expenditure on initial training.
