Govt undermining neutrality of Stats NZ

Stuff reports:

Statistics New Zealand has defended its methodology and warned it may not implement any findings of a Government-ordered review into unemployment measures.

The Labour-NZ First coalition agreement promised to conduct a review of the official measures of unemployment “to ensure they accurately reflect the workforce of the 21st Century”.

This should ring huge warning bells. This is politicians saying they don’t like the official measure, and they want to invent one which better suits them.

Luckily Stats NZ is independent and won’t be bound by the review, but it at a minimum is an attempt to pressure them. Labour risks underminign the neutrality of Stats NZ with their review.

Although there has been no comment on the nature of the review, it appears to stem from Winston Peters’ often repeated criticism that someone working one hour a week could be considered employed.

While Peters’ claim is correct, the quarterly Household Labour Force Survey delves much deeper into the job market than his statements would suggest, including measures of the extent to which people want to work more hours than they currently do.

The definition used is used by every OECD country. It allows for comparisons between countries. And as quoted above the HLFS also provides data on how many people are employed part-time (say 5 hours a week) and want to work for longer. All the data is there.

Ramsay said Statistics NZ had no more information about the review apart from what was in the coalition agreement.

“Nothing at this point. No content at all.”

Asked if she was concerned the report could damage the organisations credibility, Ramsay said: “We do hold the independence of the Government Statistician very, very much at heart.”

Any review would be “open and transparent”, and Statistics New Zealand may not make any changes, she said.

“We do the review. We don’t necessarily have to implement anything that’s there. That’s the process we would work through.”

This is the Government Statistician asserting her independence, as she should.

Dr Eric Crampton, chief economist at the New Zealand Initiative, said the review was “a bit nonsense” because the concerns expressed by Peters about the unemployment rate were already covered elsewhere in the survey.

“They’ve already got a measure of underemployment in there, which counts people who are working less than full time who would like to be working more hours,” Crampton said.

“They’re already tracking this. If it’s something you care about, you should be tracking the underemployment measure.”

Crampton said it was important that the Government Statistician not be seen to be making changes at the request of her political masters.

“They shouldn’t be under any pressure to redefine measures with a change of government.”

Absolutely.