Newsletter No. 10, June 1998
STAFF MOVEMENTS
On 1 December 1997, Mr. Kebebwe Ashagrie was appointed Director of the Bureau of Statistics, following the resignation of Mr. Farhad Mehran. Mr. Mehran continues to work in the Bureau with, among other assignments, responsibility for the organisation of the forthcoming 16th International Conference of Labour Statisticians.
FORTHCOMING CONFERENCE
The 16th International Conference of Labour Statisticians will be held from the 6 to 15 October 1998 at ILO Head quarters in Geneva. Government representatives, as well as representatives from Employers' and Workers' groups of the ILO Governing Body, will attend.
The Conference will last for eight working days and there will be three main subjects on the agenda. Two involve the revision of existing international recommendations on labour statistics, namely the "Measurement of Underemployment" and "Statistics of Occupational Injuries". The third one is a proposal for a new recommendation on the "Measurement of Income from Employment". Reports and draft revised recommendations are being prepared on these subjects and will be available on request, or in electronic form at the ILO Internet site: http://www.ilo.org/stat. Please see below for further information on these three main subjects.
A General Report will also be discussed by the Plenary of the Conference. Chapters in the General Report will deal with the International Classification of Status in Employ ment, statistics on child labour, the statistical treatment of persons on extended types of absence, and dissemination standards on labour statistics. The Conference's guidance will be sought in these areas. The General Report will also contain a chapter on the work of the ILO Bureau of Statistics and another on possible topics for standard setting by future International Conferences of Labour Statisticians. The examination of these chapters will not require the Confer ence to take any decisions but should provide the foundations for future work by the Bureau.
MEETING OF EXPERTS ON LABOUR STATISTICS:
INCOME FROM EMPLOYMENT AND UNDER-
EMPLOYMENT (October 1997)
The report of this meeting can be consulted at the Bureau of Statistics web site. Below are the recommendations made by the meeting to the Governing Body:
"Underemployment
48. The Meeting of Experts recommends to the Governing Body of the ILO that the topic of underemployment be included on the agenda of the Sixteenth International Confer ence of Labour Statisticians planned for 6-15 October 1998. The report that will be prepared by the secretariat for submission to the Conference should be focused on the concept and measurement of underemployment, providing a clear draft definition of "visible" underemployment and extensive elaborations on the definition and measurement of other forms of underemployment including at least the dimensions of income from employment and use of skills. Even though the concept of "inadequate employment" contains elements which go beyond underemployment, it is still an important concept which addresses important labour market and social phenomena. These phenomena require further elaboration at the conceptual level and refinements through experimental data collection in countries at differentlevels of development. Furthermore, the draft resolution which will accompany the report to the 16th ICLS should be revised in line with the discussion of the Meeting as summarized in the present report.
49. The Meeting of Experts also recommends that: the terminology be adopted so that the term "underemployment" when used alone encompasses both visible underemployment and all other forms of underemployment; underemployment be integrated into the labour force framework, which sets the rules for classifying persons in employment, unemployment and inactivity; underemployment be defined mainly in relation to alternative or additional employment; definitions be based on both the workers' willingness and their seeking activities; that norms be applied for policy uses only at the tabulation or analysis stage; distinguish between its different dimensions, including hours of work, hourly income from employment and use of skills; qualifying reasons for wanting or seeking alternative employment be determined to clearly fix the boundaries of underemployment; a struc tured programme sponsored by the ILO to test the definition and approach to the measurement of underemployment in a number of countries ranging from developing, transitional, industrialized, be launched; that the ILO consider supporting testing which goes beyond underemployment to other aspects of inadequate employment."
"Income from employment
100. The Meeting of Experts recommends to the Governing Body of the ILO that the topic of income from employment be included in the agenda of the Sixteenth International Conference of Labour Statisticians planned for 6-15 October 1998. The report that will be prepared by the secretariat for submission to the Conference should provide a clear defini tion of both concepts of income from paid and self-employment and should elaborate on their measure ment. With regard to income from self-employment, the report should recognize that measurement may be particu larly difficult for a number of categories of self-employed persons. The Bureau of Statistics should conduct specific research on different approaches in assessing this type of income, particularly in the difficult areas identified in this report, including the allocation of enterprise income among contributing family workers. With regard to income from paid employment, the Bureau of Statistics should undertake studies to examine the particular issue of the "imposed" compensation in kind in lieu of cash remuneration, in force in some transition countries, and develop appropriate guidelines. The draft resolution which will accompany the report to the 16th ICLS should be revised in line with the discussion of the Meeting as summarized in the present report."
MEETING OF EXPERTS ON LABOUR
STATISTICS: OCCUPATIONAL INJURIES
(30 March-3 April 1998)
The report of this meeting can be consulted at the Bureau of Statistics’ Web site. Below is a summary of the main conclusions drawn by the Meeting:
•There is a need for a programme of statistics on all areas of occupational health, including occupational diseases, dangerous occurrences and the effects of stress and repetitive movements on the health of workers and their families. Statistics of occupational injuries should form part of this programme.
•The principal aim of compiling statistics on occupational injuries is to provide comprehensive information requiredfor purposes of accident prevention.
•The statistics should cover:
-all occupational injuries (fatal or resulting in an incapacity for work of at least one day),
-all workers, regardless of their status in employment, including child labour,
-all economic activities and sectors,
-the whole country.
•Information should be compiled, as a priority, on a minimum set of data relating to establishments and employers, persons injured, accidents and injuries. Once that was achieved, data compiled should be extended to a set of variables describing in more detail the sequence of accidents and their consequences.
•The use of new sources of information, such as household surveys, establishment surveys and hospital records, should be examined and, where appropriate, developed, in order to provide fuller coverage of occupational injuries. This is particularly important for countries where the coverage of compensation schemes or labour inspection is limited.
•The most recent versions of the relevant international classifications, where they exist, should be used as the basis for national schemes. More developmental work and field testing of the various new or revised classifica tions would be required.
The Meeting considered that its discussions would provide a sound basis for the Office’s work leading to the prepara tion of a draft resolution on statistics of occupational injuries for consideration by the 16th ICLS. Once the ILO’s developmental work in this field was completed, similar work should be taken up in respect of occupational diseases.
LABOUR STATISTICS IN EAST ASIA
1996-97:
Bob Pember is the Senior Specialist in Labour Statistics in the ILO’s East Asia Multidisciplinary Advisory Team (EASMAT) based in Bangkok.
During the 1996-97 biennium, he undertook 16 missions visiting Cambodia, China (three times), Malaysia, Mongolia (twice), Nepal (four times) and Vietnam (three times), as well as attending a regional meeting of heads of statistical agencies in Japan (May 1997) and the ILO’s Meeting of Experts in Geneva in October 1997.
Six of these national missions were to carry out formal training courses or national seminars in coun tries of the region (China twice, Mongolia twice, Nepal and Vietnam). In addition, technical advisory assis tance was given to China, Nepal, and Vietnam in the design and implementation of household-based labour force surveys and discussions were held in Thailand and Vietnam on the conduct of establishment-based surveys.
During 1996-97, special emphasis was placed on improving the compilation and presentation of labour statistics based on administrative records. An ILO/Japan project on this topic was developed and implemented by Mr. Pember. This involved:
-the preparation of a 105-page book entitled Labour statistics based on administrative records: Guidelines on compilation and presentation (ILO/EASMAT, Bangkok, 1997);
-the conduct of an expert meeting in November 1996 to review and comment on the draft of this book: and
-the conduct of a regional training workshop in Pattaya, Thailand, from 17 to 21 February 1997, in which the book was used as training material.
Eivind Hoffmann of the Bureau of Statistics assisted extensively in this work. Subsequently, the guidelines book was translated into Vietnamese, published in Hanoi and used as the basis for two national training workshops ( Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in July1997), conducted with the assistance of Mr. Pember. The book has also been translated into Mongolian for a national training workshop in Ulaan Baatar in June 1998, and will be used in English for the Sri Lankan national training seminar in Colombo in August 1998.
1998:
In the six months ending 30 June 1998, Mr. Pember carried out the following activities:
-a mission in February 1998 to Nepal (as well as on-going technical support from Bangkok during the six months) for the implementation of Nepal’s first labour force survey, 1998-99. Data collection for this UNDP-funded survey started in mid-May 1998 and is scheduled to end in May 1999.
-a mission in February 1998 to Vietnam to provide technical advice and assistance with labour statistics from various sources.
-a mission in March 1998 to the Malaysian Employers Federation to review their statistical system and to carry out a workshop on labour market information.
-a second mission in May to Malaysia to comment on aspects of the ADB-funded project to improve the system of labour market information.
-a mission in July 1998 to China to assist the All China Federation of Trade Unions with their statistical surveys.
-a mission in July 1998 to Mongolia to assist with their National Training Seminar on Compiling Labour Statistics from Administrative Records (foreshadowed above under 1996-97 activities).
-several activities in Thailand which were aimed at improving the system of labour statistics to more adequately meet user needs during the current financial and economic crisis. (In March, he organised an ILO-funded meeting of users and producers of statistics to identify priority areas for improvement and then, during May and June, he held several detailed technical meetings with government agencies to advise on specific statistical areas and methodologies).