WHAT IS THE BEST MEASURE OF EMPLOYMENT AND ... - TARA

desirability of distinguishing them as a separate category in any new ILO-based
framework
Although the point is not made in the paper the ILO-based concept of
unemployment also uses the minimum level of one hour's work in the job
search criterion In practice, I personally can't envisage how a person would
purposely search for occasional work I would imagine that much of this type
of work occurs without a job search - people offering such work (e g
babysitting) generally know somebody is available and approach them directly
However, there are people who want or are in a position only to do
occasional/seasonal work and so there may again be some justification for
distinguishing those unemployed people looking for regular work from the
others
From the range of questions in the current Labour Force Survey it is not
possible to identify "true discouraged workers'' very definitively Discouragement
is a nebulous concept which has to be tied down far more tightly - for
example, by reference to previous work experience, previous job search
activity age, family circumstances, etc The lay-off generates arguments not
only at international meetings but also closer to home My problem with this
category is that it embraces people ranging from those who have been
recently laid—off with an almost certainty of return to the same job to those who
have been laid—off a long time with little or no hope of returning If the former
could be distinguished they would in my view quite legitimately be classified as
unemployed, but this would need additional questions in the LFS
What are the implications of changing over to a new framework based on the
ILO recommendations 9 A complete change over would result in discontinuity
and the loss of Census of Population benchmark figures which are currently
available on the PES basis In reality, the approach adopted would be to use
the new framework to supplement the existing traditional PES approach - i e
to have the benefit of both methods This would have the advantage that the
benefits of the proposed early publication of the traditional labour force results
from the annual Labour Force Survey (LFS), planned from 1988 onwards by
specially processing the specially extracted answers to a few LFS questions
separately from the rest, which was referred to by Paddy Teahon, would
continue to be available this would not be possible for a new framework based
on the ILO recommendation since it necessitates the processing of full survey
detail
The purpose of Donal Garvey's paper was to precipitate discussion on what
would be the best framework to be adopted nationally based on the ILO
recommendations The CSO would welcome all comments particularly when
people have had time to analyse the details of the framework on which the
paper is based They could at the same time consider the LFS itself The
information collected in this survey is largely determined by EEC Regulation
and has remained essentially unchanged for some time A review of the LFS is
commencing shortly in order to make the survey more relevant to the post
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