The Production and Presentation of Statistics of Unemployment: Comparability Issues

A trio of researchers John Adams, Hasan Al-Madfai, and Ray Thomas from Napier University, University of Glamorgan, and The Open University all in UK are here presenting a paper on “ The Production and Presentation of Statistics of Unemployment. Comparability Issues”. Even though The United Nations publishes unemployment statistics for 123 countries and most of these statistics are based on International Labour Office criteria, many countries also produce unemployment statistics based on insurance records and on the basis of registered unemployment as well as sample social surveys. “This paper aims to compare the main features of the different methods. The dimensions compared include the conceptual basis for the definition of unemployment, boundaries of employment and inactivity, entry statistics and duration of unemployment, use of denominators for production of unemployment rates, and the cultural influence of the statistics. The paper identifies conflicts between achieving international comparability and national needs”. The article summarizes a full report to be published. The paper was presented at the IASSIST conference 2005 in the session “Cross-national Socio-economic Data: Boundaries of Evidence”.