I'm so sick and tired of Howard's 'false' unemployment figures

So you think Howard cleans up unemployment figures to give his Government a better 'progpaganda' pitch hey? An assistant statistician from ABS might just be able to set you straight..

As written to Crikey 21 Jul 06
"Merilyn Henden, assistant statistician in Labour Statistics at the Australian Bureau of Statistics, writes: "It's time to end the great unemployment figure rort" (17 July, item 18) accused the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) of presenting misleading unemployment statistics. It is true that some countries only count a person as employed if they worked 15 hours or more in the reference week. However, Australia, United Kingdom, Canada and other countries have interpreted the phrase "some work" included in the internationally accepted definition to mean work for at least one hour. This approach ensures consistency between measures of employment and measures of production of goods and services, as all work (however little) contributing to national production is included in measures of employment. Employment and unemployment statistics in Australia have been produced using these internationally accepted concepts and methods since the monthly national labour force survey commenced in 1978. Each month the ABS conducts the Labour Force Survey (LFS) in around 30,000 households across Australia. The LFS collects information used to produce official estimates of people who are employed, unemployed, and not in the labour force. The information collected relates to the labour force activity in the reference week of the respondent. This approach is widely accepted, both in Australia and internationally, as the best method of achieving reliable information on the level of unemployment. Apart from the key measures of employment and unemployment, the LFS also collects information about the hours worked by respondents and their desire for more hours. In addition, the LFS collects more detailed information on a specific topic or group of people each month. One such group is "Persons not in the Labour Force". This additional information is collected annually to assist those who wish to undertake further analysis of people classified as not in the labour force. Comparisons between the unemployment rate produced from the LFS and various government benefits can be difficult because they are not measuring the same thing. For example, estimates of the number of Australians on unemployment benefits can include people who are working. They can also be affected by administrative procedures and any changes made to them. Hopefully the points above will help Crikey readers better understand ABS labour force statistics."

So lets stop this wingeing about Howard's spin doctoring the best unemployment rates in 30 years... nothing has changed since 1978, and this method has been used by subsequent Liberal AND Labor governments.

Enough said.