Panel unable to find cover-up over Japan labor survey

January 23, 2019

Tokyo--A special investigation panel in a report released on Tuesday stopped short of confirming a cover-up by the labor ministry of irregularities in its monthly labor survey that have led to underpayment of jobless and other benefits.

Still, Yoshio Higuchi, head of the panel, said at a press conference that division-chief-level employees concerned at the ministry, including former workers, have continued to use a flawed survey method "unthinkingly" despite their knowledge that the method is improper.

After receiving the report from the panel, labor minister Takumi Nemoto announced punishments on a total of 22 incumbent and former officials over the labor survey fiasco. Of them, vice labor minister Toshihiko Suzuki was given a warning and will voluntarily return 10 pct of his pay for one month.

Nemoto himself will return all salaries and bonuses he has received since assuming the post of labor minister last October.

While the survey is supposed to cover all business establishments with 500 or more employees, the ministry switched to a sampling method for businesses in Tokyo in 2004.

In the investigation report, the panel said the ministry had thought that it would be able to secure the accuracy of the survey even without researching all such businesses.

The ministry switched to the sampling method, based on requests from relevant prefectural government officials for their burdens to be reduced after they received a flurry of complaints from companies with 500 or more employees, according to the report.

After adopting the sampling method, the ministry failed to take steps to make the obtained data as accurate as those that would have become available if all businesses with 500 or more workers had been surveyed. Jiji Press

No problem would have occurred if officials in charge of survey planning had asked system-related officials to conduct such adjustment work and a computer system had undergone a necessary update, the panel said, blaming a lack of communications within the ministry's statistics division.

"The survey irregularities have undermined public trust in not only government statistics but also administrative services," said Higuchi, head of the Japan Institute for Labor Policy and Training.

Thorough measures to prevent similar irregularities will be considered, he said.

On the fact that a description taken to tolerate the use of the sampling method was deleted from a ministry manual for the labor survey for 2015, the report quoted a relevant division chief at the time as saying: "We'd had no intention to cover up (the irregularities). The sampling method has been employed for a long period."

The panel thus stopped short of confirming a cover-up attempt by the ministry.

It is difficult to conclude that the ministry concealed the irregularities, lawyer Fumio Arai, acting head of the investigation panel, said at the press conference.

As penalties, the ministry decided to reduce 10 pct of monthly pay for one to six months for incumbent and former senior officials at relevant divisions.

Retired officials will be asked to return the amounts equivalent to the pay cuts.