国际英语新闻:Japan's Abe denies instructing labor ministry to alter survey method

TOKYO, Feb. 18 (Xinhua) -- Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Monday he in no way ordered the labor ministry to alter its methods for collecting data through a key monthly survey.

Abe told a Diet committee that he takes a serious view of the matter and maintained that expertise and reliability are required to ensure the statistics are legitimate.

The Japanese leader conceded, however, that erroneous methods for collecting key data on wages and working hours may have gone unnoticed for as long as 15 years.

It was revealed recently that Abe's secretary, four years ago, may have expressed concern that the labor ministry had changed its survey samples.

According to calls from the opposition camp, the labor ministry may have come under pressure to ensure that the data it was collecting and compiling reflected the success of the prime minister's blend of economic policies known as "Abenomics."

Abe said he knew the wage growth statistics for June 2015 were affected by the changing of samples, adding he himself had not issued any changes to the sampling methodology.

In addition, the prime minister rejected claims that the statistics had been manipulated to make real wages look higher than was in fact the case.

Abe said he had never referred to the labor ministry's monthly survey statistics to prove that wages were increasing.

The latest setback to hit the prime minister and the labor ministry stems from the embattled ministry admitting that multiple flaws in surveys related to jobs and wages had been uncovered, with erroneous methods of data gathering revealed to have been used to gather official governmental statistics.

The flawed surveys, according to the labor ministry, resulted in the ministry's basic statistics on wage structure being compiled using faulty methods and the calculation of minimum wages being incorrect based on the erroneous figures.

The ministry said the survey, which purportedly aims to provide a clear gauge of wage payment and structure based on employment type or occupation, had seen ministry inspectors cut corners in collecting the key data, such as by not hand-delivering questionnaires to businesses and collecting them, and giving shortened deadlines to respondents.

Along with calculating minimum wages, the statistics are also vital in calculating income losses to those who have died in accidents, the ministry admitted.

Prior to this, the labor ministry had come under fire for releasing faulty jobs and wage data spanning a period of a decade or more that resulted in more than 20 million people not receiving their full benefits.

Japan's Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry subsequently found that top bureaucrats and other senior officials at the ministry knowingly and systematically covered up the improper method for collecting the data, which serves as a recognized barometer of the nation's employment situation.

The improper method used for data collection has led to the government being forced to revise the state budget for fiscal 2019 and address the fact that unemployment insurance and workers' compensation in some fields, applicable to 20.15 million people and to the tune of 53.75 billion yen (486.23 million U.S. dollars), has gone unpaid.

An independent probe has since been launched into the improprieties, and opposition parties have been calling for labor minister Takumi Nemoto to resign over the matter.