Sir, your correspondent, Mel Cousins (July 30th) remarks that it is "dangerously misleading" of me to have suggested in my article of July 20th that the most reliable unemployment data come from the Labour Force Survey. However, I note that he does not challenge the basis of this statement of mine, viz. that because, unlike the administrative data from the Live Register, the Labour Force Survey figures are derived from responses to the same questions asked every year, they are consistent as between different years and different countries.
Nor does he challenge any of the facts I gave about changes in the coverage of the Live Register. In recent years these have added tens of thousands of additional beneficiaries, thus invalidating comparisons between different periods.
He also challenges my reference to people legally entitled to be on the Live Register, despite the fact that, because they feel they no longer have any hope of being employed, they have not sought work "in recent weeks". This statement was based on information supplied to me by the Department of Social Welfare, and relates, I believe, to the fact that the Live Register condition is not specific as to how recently work must have been sought in order to qualify for benefit.
Finally, Mel Cousins also faults the Labour Force Survey data on the grounds that they are based on a person's status rather than his or her behaviour. But while it is true that the heading to the relevant Labour Force Survey tables refers "Principal Economic Status", he must be aware that the figures in these tables represented, replied to a question as to the interviewee's "usual situation with regard to employment", to which possible alternative answers inter alia include "working for employment or profit", "unemployed having lost or given up job", "actively looking for work again after a voluntary interruption of working life of 12 months or more for personal or domestic reasons", and "engaged on home duties".
While no definition of unemployment can be perfect, as the issue is to an extent a subjective one, it is difficult to argue that someone who, given this choice of answers, chooses to describe his or her position as "engaged on home duties" is in fact really unemployed and seeking work. - Yours etc.,
Palmerston Road,
Dublin 6.
