Transcript S4.9c

ILO experience in quickly estimating the
impact of financial crisis on
the global labour market
International Seminar on Timeliness,
Methodology and Comparability of Rapid
Estimates of Economic Trends,
Ottawa, Canada, 27-29 May 2009
ILO Department of Statistics
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Financial crisis

Affected the economic activities and labour
markets around the world;
 Urgent need to have accurate and detailed data
and information on how the economic crisis
impacts employment and unemployment so that
appropriate evidence-based policies are developed
and monitored;
 Developing and developed countries were
differently affected by the economic crisis.
Need to come up with global and
regional estimates of employment and
employment trends
ILO Department of Statistics
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Purposes

Snapshot of the employment situation in the
world;
 Employment evolution through time, analysed in
conjunction with other economic and social
variables may be used to draw conclusions about
future trends in the global economy;
 They provide a benchmark against which the
economic and labour market performance of
individual countries may be compared and
assessed;
 Their effect on public policy and the media.
ILO Department of Statistics
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Purpose of this presentation

To describe the ILO methodology for estimating the changes
in the current levels and rates of employment and
unemployment at the global and regional level
– overview of the data availability;
– various methods of aggregation at regional and global
levels, various models for imputing the missing values
and the types of sensitivity analysis done;
– some of the estimates, and looks at future work that
should lead to better and more comprehensive estimates.
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Data needed vs. data available

Official monthly/quarterly data on (i) employment, (total,
in non-agricultural activities, in manufacturing), total and
paid employment; (ii) unemployment (level and rates);

Ideal scenario: (i) available for all countries, (ii) available
within a very short time after the and of the reference
period and (iii) if all national data were comparable
Reality: very far from ideal.

ILO Department of Statistics
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Aggregation of national data

Measurement objective: (i) to measure the overall change
in employment/unemployment in the world or (ii) to assess
the average change in employment/unemployment across
all countries in the world.

Regional groupings : (i) by continent or (ii) by level of
development.
ILO Department of Statistics
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Aggregation of national data


Given (i) the differences in the trends of the changes
between the developed and developing countries, (ii) the
limited number of countries with current data (monthly
or quarterly),
Considered appropriate (a) to separately analyse
developed and developing countries, and (b) to use the
weighted median change across countries with data
within each group, as a summary statistics for the
distribution of these changes across countries.

Global estimates of the changes are calculated as
weighted means of the median changes in the developed
and developing countries.
ILO Department of Statistics
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Alternative aggregations of national data
-

Average change based on observed and imputed values
Imputations based on the basis of the average month-tomonth change for the last 6 months (geo and arithmetic
mean),
Imputed values corrected for the average relative
difference between observed and imputed values for
countries with data for Jan.2009. (separately for
developed and developing countries.)
ILO Department of Statistics
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Alternative aggregations of national data (cont.)

The quality of the estimates based on imputed values
considered as less reliable
1. The situation in the labours market has been
changing very quickly and at the beginning of 2009
was much worse than the situation in the second half
of 2008, in many countries;
2. The number of points with data in the second half of
2008 was limited to only one or two for countries
with quarterly estimates. This makes the imputed
values for Jan.09 very unreliable and sensitive to
seasonal variations that may exist from one
month/quarter to another.
ILO Department of Statistics
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Sensitivity tests



differences between the estimates based on annual and
on monthly data,
differences between the medians based on a maximum
number of monthly/quarterly observations and on
observations for two thirds of the series,
upper and lower limits of the median when the values
for countries without data are imputed.
Additional tests were done by imputing the values for China
and India based on the annual change in employment/
unemployment.
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Sensitivity tests - findings




The global estimates based on the median for the
countries with data are very similar to the ones based on
data for all countries.
The quality and reliability of the global estimates
depend on the number of countries with data.
The global estimates are for the last two months should
be interpreted with caution.
Given the large number of developing countries without
data, especially China and India, the estimates for the
developing countries should be interpreted with caution.
ILO Department of Statistics
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Some results
Global and regional trends estimated for


unemployment (level and rate);
employment total, total and paid
employment in non-agriculture, total and paid;
employment in manufacturing, total and paid.
CPI (all-items and food group).

www.ilo.org/jobcrisis.



ILO Department of Statistics
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Some results:
Percentage change over the same period of the
previous year
Developed countries
Developing countries
50.0
20.0
40.0
15.0
30.0
10.0
20.0
5.0
10.0
9*
Ma
r-0
*
09
Fe
b-
9*
n-0
Ja
-08
De
c
-08
No
v
8
t-0
Oc
-08
Se
p
-08
Au
g
l-0
8
Ju
8
n-0
Ju
y-0
Ma
-08
Ap
r
9*
ar
-0
M
*
*
09
-5.0
-10.0
-20.0
CPI: All items
Fe
b-
Ja
n
-0
9
-0
8
De
c
-0
8
No
v
8
t-0
Oc
-0
8
Se
p
-0
8
Au
g
l-0
8
Ju
n08
Ju
-0
8
ay
M
-0
8
Ap
r
-10.0
8
0.0
0.0
CPI: Food
Unemployment
Employment
Employment in manufacturingCPI: All items
ILO Department of Statistics
CPI: Food
Unemployment
Employment
Employment in man
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Challenges

To improve the methodology for estimating
the changes in absolute level of employment and
unemployment,
(ii) the number of jobs lost.
(i)


Based on the experiences with previous crisis, to
predict the changes in the future.
To analyse the impact of crisis on the situation
of men and women in the labour markets.
ILO Department of Statistics
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