EDITORIAL - Lying with numbers

Pearnel Charles, the labour minister, tries very hard at finding employment for Jamaicans, to the point where you might wonder if he is confused as to whether he runs a labour exchange rather than heads a key economic ministry.

Part of the issue, we believe, is that Minister Charles, rightfully, takes seriously his administration's campaign promise of aggressive job creation, which has been difficult in the current global conditions.

Rather, the Jamaican economy has been shedding jobs - nearly 90,000 between the start of the recession and April this year. Mr Charles, it seems, takes this almost personally.

This is commendable. What is bad, however, is the apparent attempt by the labour minister to create illusion with the data.

Recently, he has been talking up a storm, including in Parliament, about the fact that labour ministry records have shown only 22,000 jobs being made redundant since the start of the recession.

Diminished data value

He doesn't quite dispute the figures for job losses produced by the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN) and used in its analysis by the Planning Institute of Jamaica. Rather, Mr Charles seeks to diminish the value of such data with sniffy remarks such as that the STATIN numbers include people "if you have worked for an hour for the week".

What he is really suggesting is that only those job losses where formal redundancy notices were given, and reported to the labour ministry, should be categorised as real work. As though this will diminish the reality.

But Mr Charles misses the point, or misunderstands the nature of the labour market in Jamaica. It is a fact that there is a large amount of under-employment in Jamaica. And there is, too, a great deal of informality in the labour market.

For instance, someone who may be among the persons whose job loss was reported to the labour ministry might, in turn, let go his/her minimum wage helper. That job loss is unlikely to be among Mr Charles' 22,000 redundancies, but the effect of unemployment will be no less significant to the individual and, when multiplied, to the broad economy.

Three points to note

Perchance Mr Charles did not know such informality is not only among helpers. Ask, for instance, at the stores.

We make three points to Mr Charles.

In an economy, every earning of income, whether from formal or informal employment, contributes to aggregate demand.

Second, denying data does not obviate reality. Rather, credible statistics are important to the formulation of credible policy.

Finally, when policymakers talk nonsense, people stop listening, including those who might seek to convince us that the work from which they used to get a wage was not really a job.

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