Lawrence Jeff Johnson Chief, Employment Trends International Labour Organisation

Employment Trends www.ilo.org/trends

Topic 3: Methods to address data gaps for the monitoring of the target on full, decent and

productive employment

Lawrence Jeff Johnson

Chief, Employment TrendsInternational Labour Organisation

Geneva, Switzerland



Global Unemployment, 2006


Unemployment Rates: by Region, 2006

0.0

5.0

10.0

15.0

20.0

25.0

30.0

World DevelopedEconomies

andEuropean

Union

Central andEasternEurope

(non-EU)and CIS

East Asia South EastAsia and

the Pacific

South Asia LatinAmericaand the

Caribbean

Middle Eastand North

Africa

Sub-Saharan

Africa

Un

em

plo

ym

en

t R

ate

Youth Female Male Total


New Target 1bis has 3 specific dimensions:

Full Employment Productive Employment Decent Employment

No Single Labour Market Indicator exists today that would address all three dimensions of the target or meet the specified requirements


Indicators for Target 1b

Employment-to-population ratios for persons aged 15+ and youth (15-24) by sex

Vulnerable employment

The share of working poor (US$1 a day) in total employment

Labour productivity


Employment-to-population ratios

0.0

10.0

20.0

30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0

80.0

90.0

World DevelopedEconomies

andEuropean

Union

Central andEastern

Europe (non-EU) and CIS

East Asia South EastAsia and the

Pacific

South Asia LatinAmerica and

theCaribbean

Middle Eastand North

Africa

Sub-SaharanAfrica

Em

plo

ym

en

t-to

-po

pu

lati

on

rati

os

Total Male Female Youth


0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

WORLD DevelopedEconomies& European

Union

Central &South

EasternEurope

(non-EU) &CIS

East Asia South EastAsia & the

Pacific

South Asia LatinAmerica &

theCaribbean

Middle East sub-SaharanAfrica

North Africa

1996

2006

Vulnerable Employment Shares


Employment and the Share of Working Poor 1996-2006

0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

3.0

1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006

(Billi

ons)

60.0%

60.4%

60.8%

61.2%

61.6%

62.0%

62.4%

62.8%

63.2%

63.6%

64.0%

above US$2US$2 Working Poor a day US$1 Working Poor a day Employment-to-population ratio


Global Share of Working Poorin Total Employment

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015

Sh

are

of

wo

rkin

g p

oo

r (%

)

Rate of progress neededto meet $2 a day goal

$2 a day working poverty(estimate)

$2 a day working poverty(projection)

Rate of progress neededto meet $1 a day goal

$1 a day working poverty(estimate)

$1 a day working poverty(projection)


Share of working poor living below US$1 a day

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

Central &South-EasternEurope

(non-EU) &CIS

East Asia South-EastAsia & the

Pacific


theCaribbean

NorthAfrica

Sub-SaharanAfrica

MiddleEast

Per

cen

t of t

ota

l em

plo

ymen

t

1996

2006


Labour Productivity

0

10,000

20,000

30,000

40,000

50,000

60,000

70,000

WORLD DevelopedEconomies

&European

Union

Central &South-EasternEurope

(non-EU) &CIS

East Asia South-EastAsia & the

Pacific


theCaribbean

NorthAfrica

Sub-SaharanAfrica

MiddleEastO

utp

ut

pe

r w

ork

er

(co

ns

tan

t U

S$

20

00

at

PP

P)

19962006


Criteria for Indicators Set by the Friends of the Chair :

The indicator and related metadata need to be well established in the statistical community

To the extent possible, the indicator should already be part of the regular data collection and compilation programmes in countries

Available data and geographical coverage should allow for regional/sub-regional aggregation and trends analysis (at least two points in time)


Criteria (cont’d):

There is a responsible agency for the production of the indicator and for undertaking the related analysis

The indicator is recommended by a well established and recognized peer review mechanism with representatives from both the international and national statistical communities


Sources of information for constructing global estimates and trends?

• National sources– Labour Offices– Central

Statistical Offices

– Universities– Etc.

• ILO sources– KILM– LMIL– Regional

Offices– Specialists

within the ILO– Etc.

• Other sources– World Bank– IMF– OECD– WTO– Regional

sources (ADB)– Etc.


Challenges in the production of world and regional estimates

• The biggest challenge in the production of aggregate estimates is missing data

• To address the problem the ILO has designed, and actively maintains, three economic models to produce estimates of labour market indicators in the countries and years for which no real data exists


The Trends Models

• The Trends Labour Force Model– Country-level and world and regional labour force estimates

• The Global Employment Trends Model– Estimates missing labour market indicators based on available national

and regional macroeconomic information (GDP, population, recent conflicts, historical developments)

– Corrects for sample selection bias

– Estimates – disaggregated by age and sex – of unemployment, employment, employment by sector and status, employment elasticities and labour productivity.

• The Working Poverty Model– Estimates and projects working poor numbers, based on available

macroeconomic data


Techniques to impute missing values

• Each of these models uses multivariate regression techniques to impute missing values at the country level.

• The first step in each model is to assemble every known piece of information (estimates from national surveys) for each indicator.

Note that only data that are national in coverage and comparable across countries and over time are used as inputs.


Imputations of missing values follows two procedures

First Step:• A panel data set of more than 15 years is assembled.• If data are missing for only some years, information

from complete years is used to gap fill.

Second Step:• When data for all years are missing imputation is done

by using a similar procedure but with the ratios now computed at sub-regional or regional levels.


Topic 3: Methods to address data gaps for the monitoring of the target on full, decent and

productive employment

Lawrence Jeff Johnson

Chief, Employment TrendsInternational Labour Organisation

Geneva, Switzerland

Documents

Lawrence Jeff Johnson Chief, Employment Trends International Labour Organisation