Another bungled handling that shakes public trust in government statistics and labor administration has been revealed. Why has the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry repeatedly conducted such blunders?
It has recently been found that a survey method different from what it should have been had been in use for many years to compile the ministry's Monthly Labor Survey, and thus data containing errors were released. Benefits related to employment insurance and workers' accident compensation insurance systems are calculated based on the survey results, and the latest mishandling resulted in underpayments of such benefits totaling 56.7 billion yen.
In order to reflect additional expenses to deal with the underpayments, the government will have to revise the budget plan for fiscal 2019 and adopt it again at a Cabinet meeting. This is an unusual situation. The ministry bears a heavy responsibility for the matter.
The Monthly Labor Survey exhibits indexes for wage and working hour trends. It is considered one of the key statistics reports released by the government. Survey results are used to calculate gross domestic product and other important economic indicators.
The data have a great impact on a wide variety of measures and policies. Ministry officials involved in the bungled handling must have lacked understanding of the significance of such data. It is imperative to thoroughly examine the causes and effects, and enforce preventive measures. It is also necessary to rigorously check methods used for other fundamental statistics.
The monthly survey covers businesses with five employees or more and is conducted through prefectural and metropolitan governments. Businesses with fewer than 500 workers are randomly selected for the survey, while all large-size businesses with 500 or more are covered by the survey.
Avoid turmoil
However, only one-third of such large companies in Tokyo were found to have been surveyed. The ministry reportedly decided on the companies to be polled in the survey. It did not even perform the statistical procedure required in a sampling survey.
Many businesses with relatively high salary levels had been excluded from the survey. As a result, the wage data in the survey results were lower than what they should have been. This caused underpayments of employment insurance benefits, among other effects.
The erroneous survey method had been in use since 2004. Underpayments of benefits, including unemployment benefits, affected in total 19.73 million workers and 300,000 businesses. Action must be taken as soon as possible to remedy the affected people.
The ministry does not have in its possession the addresses of many of the affected people. Although the ministry is said to have a plan to set up a specialized section for those affected and call for applications, it must make efforts to minimize confusion.
The ministry began adjusting survey results for the January 2018 edition in an attempt to bring the figures closer to what they should have been. Such an act cannot be overlooked either. Despite acknowledging the error in the survey method, did they not try to deceive with superficial corrections?
At the ordinary Diet session last year, flaws were revealed in the working hour data compiled by the ministry. Consequently, expanding the scope of the discretionary work system, which the government had planned to include in a package of work style reform bills, fell through. The ministry also overlooked the practice in which ministries and agencies padded the number of disabled workers.
The ministry should be promoting social security reform, thus it must no longer act as a shackle to reform.
(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, Jan. 13, 2019)
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