Vol. 487 No. 7
3 Mr. Sargent asked the Taoiseach if consideration will be given by the Central Statistics Office when supplying the monthly unemployment figures to accompany these figures with the updated figures for those on pre-retirement allowance, disability or injury benefit in specified employment schemes and, in general, include those not engaged in full-time employment. [4161/98]
4 Mr. Broughan asked the Taoiseach the implications, if any, of the changeover to the ILO-based standardised unemployment rate method of calculating unemployment statistics; his views on whether he expects the gap with the live register to be clearly identified from April 1998. [4102/98]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 3 and 4 together.
In December, the Government announced the planned changeover to an improved ILO-based presentation of statistics on employment and unemployment. The new form of presentation was proposed by the Central Statistics Office, endorsed by the Strategy Group on Employment and Unemployment and followed from recommendations made last May by the National Economic and Social Forum in its report on unemployment statistics.
The new presentation will give greater prominence to the ILO-based measures of employment and unemployment, which have been included in the CSO's annual labour force survey reports since 1988. The ILO-based figures are the ones normally used by international agencies for intercountry comparisons. They provide a very detailed and objective classification of persons by labour force status, from which a range of summary indicators can also be derived. The traditional national labour force measures, based on the person's subjective assessment of his or her situation, will continue to be published. The key measure of unemployment is the standardised unemployment rate, which the CSO has published since 1992. In addition, five other ancillary indicators, will now be published to give supporting information relating to long-term unemployment, persons marginally attached to the labour force, and jobless households.
The changeover will be linked to the publication of the first results from the quarterly national household survey planned for April. This survey will be the definitive source of comprehensive sub-annual information on employment and unemployment. The availability of more frequent survey-based information, including the ancillary indicators, will, in conjunction with the monthly live register and other data sources, improve the overall range of statistics available on the labour market.
The CSO's monthly main live register statement includes data on those in receipt of pre-retirement allowance. It also contains statistics on the pre-retirement credits scheme, systematic short-time workers, smallholders and self-employed persons in receipt of unemployment assistance. Following the adoption of the new presentation format, and having regard to the greater range of sub-annual data now becoming available, the CSO intends to review its overall presentation of labour market statistics. This review will be undertaken in consultation with users and will encompass the need for more analyses and also address the coherence of the data from different sources.
Does the Minister accept the best way to measure full-time employment is in respect of the number of person hours worked per week? I did not hear what the Minister of State said about part-time work. As many people now work on a contract basis, we need an accurate system of measuring part-time work. Does he accept we need proper statistics on low paid employment, particularly having regard to a recruitment problem that was highlighted on "Prime Time" last night?
The statistics do not measure rates of pay. They merely measure the extent of employment and unemployment. There is no proposal to measure the numbers on certain rates of pay. In regard to part-time work, a perennial problem for successive Governments has been the gap between the labour force survey and the live register — the live register being consistently higher than the labour force surveys. One of the reasons is that many of the people interviewed in the survey who may be in part-time employment are allowed to claim on the live register for some payment. As such, they are included on the live register but do not describe themselves as unemployed.
Will the Minister of State accept that the divergence in data available from the monthly live register statistics and the labour force survey to date has provided a confused figure for Government and has worked against the objective of the Government target areas of high unemployment? Will the Minister further accept the notion that people counted as unemployed, when they are employed in so far as they want to be, is not a useful measure of unemployment and that resources have been badly targeted because of the lack of information?
I accept the gap between the live register and the labour force survey which peaked in 1996 when there were 90,000 more persons on the live register than in the labour force surveys. The number at the end of 1997 has been reduced to 76,000 which is still enormous. The CSO has conducted a number of surveys to explain the gap. It has published and explained statistically the reason for the gap. It is confident, as professionals in the statistics business, that the new quarterly labour force survey, based on the ILO system, will be much more useful. It is adamant that the survey system gives a more comprehensive picture for policy purposes. It provides more detail on how the labour market is working and the numbers involved in each sector than the live register, which is an administrative head count of the number of people in receipt of unemployment payments. It causes confusion, particularly when one is trying to calculate unemployment rates. The ILO has a new presentation which will show the standard unemployment rate. This will allow us to use the same basis for calculation that the other countries, with which we are compared, use. I hope that will improve the situation. I accept this has been a problem for successive Governments. There is less reliance on the live register which is used as a simple head count while policy decisions are based on labour force surveys and particularly the new quarterly survey, which will be published in April.
