Where does the responsibility lie for the distortion of statistical surveys over many years? The government must accelerate efforts to study measures to prevent similar incidents by deeply examining the slipshod practices.
In the wake of the bungled survey data on monthly labor statistics by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, the government revised its draft budget for fiscal 2019 and adopted it at a Cabinet meeting. The general account has been increased by 650 million yen to cover additional costs for employment insurance payments and other benefits.
It is extremely rare to revise a draft budget due to an administrative blunder.
About 20.15 million people did not receive their full benefit entitlement, and expenses needed to fund additional benefit payments total about 79.5 billion yen. A large amount of money is required also to upgrade the relevant systems, among other things.
Most of the money will come from the special account for labor insurance, which is funded by premiums paid by companies and employees. This will impose an unnecessary burden on the general public.
Benefits, such as unemployment compensation, child-care leave benefits and workers' compensation insurance, which are calculated based on labor statistics, have been underpaid. The labor ministry must make efforts to provide those affected with detailed information and steadily pay them the benefits they are owed.
All business establishments with 500 or more employees are subject to the survey, but the ministry had narrowed the surveyed group to about one-third of such firms in Tokyo since 2004. The survey findings were thus different from the actual situation, prompting people also from the government to point out the possibility of a violation of the Statistics Law.
Restore public trust in statistics
What cannot be overlooked is that the government failed to take action even though it had an opportunity to correct the practice.
The survey procedure manual had initially included a passage allowing for the use of a sample, but the passage was deleted in 2014. From January 2018, the ministry made adjustments to the data to bring the results closer to estimates. Isn't this evidence that the department in charge was aware of the problem with the survey method?
The labor ministry revealed to the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry's Statistics Bureau that part of the survey data collected from 2004 to 2011 had been discarded or lost. Future data recovery will certainly be difficult. This is not only an inappropriate response; it is also likely to arouse suspicions of a malicious cover-up.
It is an urgent task for the labor ministry to have a special inspection committee, which comprises outside experts, find out the motive behind the misconduct and whether the ministry tried to cover it up systematically. After that, it is important to take drastic corrective measures, including a review of the organizational structure.
Monthly labor statistics are viewed as one of the 56 key statistics along with population censuses and national accounts. The labor statistics are often used as a basis for policy making, academic research and management decisions.
The government must fully recognize the importance of statistics and work to restore public confidence.
(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, Jan. 19, 2019)
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