Vol. 487 No. 4
7 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]
8 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. 7 and 8 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 inter-country 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 the 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, planned for April, of the first results from the quarterly national household survey. 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.
