MORE than one in 10 people claiming the dole said they had a full-time job, in a survey of 1,496 people on the live register last, April. A further one in 10 said they had a part-time job. And just under one in two dole recipients in the survey did not classify" themselves as unemployed.
Releasing details from its unemployment study, the Central
Statistics Office said yesterday it proved the labour force survey was a more accurate measure of unemployment than the live register.
The CSO director, Mr Donal Garvey, said the survey had been carried out to explain the difference of 86,000 between both sets of figures highlighted last year. It cost an extra £30,000 on top of the cost of the labour force survey.
"Our conclusion is that the results confirm what had previously only been generally evident: that persons who are not statistically classified as unemployed are included in the live register."
The CSO was given the bulk of the live register - 250,000 addresses of those on unemployment benefit and unemployment assistance - by the Department of Social Welfare. A sample of more than 2,600 was chosen at random, three-quarters of whom were short-term unemployed.
In the case of 679 addresses, the person claiming dole did not live at the address. In around half of these cases the household name corresponded with the name of the claimant, even though he or she did not live there.
"In relation to people we couldn't find we can draw no specific conclusions at all," Mr Garvey said. He agreed that the address of the person on the live register is the address that they gave when they first signed on.
Around 40 or 50 addresses could not be found, and were believed to be false. And 161 people had left the live register between 1995 and 1996. A further 78 people fell into categories which were excluded from the live register, like systematic short-time workers.
"So we had effectively 1,496 persons which we identified on the live register and whose records we were able to identify on the labour force survey.
More than 11 per cent said they had full-time jobs and around three-quarters of these people - these jobs were permanent. Almost 25 per cent were classified as "not economically active", which is defined as someone who does not qualify as unemployed as they are not available for work, not seeking work and when asked said they did not want a job. Just under 4 per cent said they were retired and a similar number said they were students.
Mr Garvey said the study had been carried out as a quality-control exercise. And neither those questioned or the interviewers carrying out the survey knew purpose. "They weren't looking for any specific individuals." He said the information was given in, confidence and only a small number of CSO officials know the identify of the people surveyed. "Nobody knows - other than two or three people in this office - who these people are."
The response rate was marginally lower than usual, at 92 per cent. The usual response rate is 95 per cent.
The labour force survey of 155,000 people in 45,000 households will be carried out quarterly from next year, Mr Garvey said.
The results of this year's survey will be released next month.
"If we hadn't done this [survey] we'd be sitting down on the 22nd of October with another huge between the live register and the labour force survey."
Mr Garvey insisted there was "no new story here", as previous years had highlighted a gap between those claiming the dole and those listed as unemployed in the labour force survey.
He described the sample as a "robust sample" and a "very strong anchor" from which to estimate the overall discrepancy. He said the idea of the survey arose out of discussion with the Government and he was not sure whose idea it had been.
The CSO interim report was given to the Government Strategy Group on Unemployment last Wednesday and an initial statement put the percentage of people in full-time jobs claiming the dole at 16 per cent. The final report, however, found a figure of 11.
