Errors have taken place in how the labor ministry's Monthly Labor Survey regarding workers' wages and other nationwide data was carried out, it has been learned. There is a possibility that the errors will impact on survey results from the past.
The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry releases the results of the survey every month. According to sources, the survey is supposed to involve all businesses across the nation whose employees number 500 or more. However, the Tokyo metropolitan government has run the survey on only about one third of such companies.
The labor ministry is working on identifying the cause and sequence of events that led to the errors.
The ministry conducts the survey through prefectural and metropolitan governments in a bid to keep track of workers' wages, working hours and other data. The data is used for calculating gross domestic product and other indexes.
According to the ministry, there are a little under 6,000 businesses whose employees number 500 or more across the nation. About 1,400 of these 6,000 companies are located in Tokyo. Nonetheless, the Tokyo metropolitan government has conducted the survey on only about 500 businesses -- one third of the total. It appears the metropolitan government has narrowed down the list of companies for years on which the survey should be conducted.
Since there are several major companies in Tokyo, it is more likely that wages are higher than those of other prefectures. Given that, survey results in the past could have indicated wage amounts that were lower than they actually were.
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