General

The ILO provides technical advice and assistance to countries of the Asia and the Pacific region in areas of its technical competence, including labour statistics. This support is provided through technical advisory missions, the formulation and execution of projects, and supply of consultancies, as well as through the preparation and distribution of research material, technical guidelines and manuals. The ILO also publishes a Year Book of Labour Statistics, the quarterly Bulletin of Labour Statistics and its supplements.

Multidisciplinary teams

Within the region, three ILO multidisciplinary technical advisory teams operate as follows:

• East Asia Multidisciplinary Advisory Team (EASMAT) based in Bangkok;
• South-East Asia and the Pacific Multidisciplinary Advisory Team (SEAPAT) based in Manila; and
• South Asia Multidisciplinary Advisory Team (SAAT) based in New Delhi.

These teams implement Country Objectives which are prepared for each country by the responsible ILO Area Office in consultation with the government, and employers' and workers' groups. The Objectives identify specific priority areas in which ILO assistance is required.

In the field of labour statistics, there is one senior specialist based with ILO/EASMAT Bangkok covering most of the countries of the Asia/Pacific region. Countries of the former Soviet Union and Turkey are assisted from the ILO Bureau of Statistics, Geneva.

Governments which seek assistance with the development of their systems of labour statistics should contact the responsible ILO Area Office through their Ministry of Labour or the Statistics Division of ESCAP 1 Requests received via ESCAP will be referred to ILO/EASMAT which will consult the responsible ILO Area Office. Direct contact with the ILO Area Office is preferred. (Footnote: Requests received via ESCAP will be referred to ILO/EASMAT which will consult the responsible ILO Area Office. Direct contact with the ILO Area Office is preferred.).

EASMAT advisory missions in the region

Since the Ninth Session of the Committee on Statistics (November 1994), the ILO/EASMAT adviser has undertaken 15 advisory missions to Cambodia (4), China, Lao PDR (3), Malaysia, Mongolia, Nepal (2), Pakistan and Viet Nam (2), as well as providing ad hoc support to Thailand. Two of the missions to Lao PDR were undertaken as a consultant funded by the Asian Development Bank.

In Cambodia, Lao PDR, Nepal and (still incomplete) Viet Nam, the ILO has promoted or undertaken a review of the existing systems of labour statistics and made recommendations for improvement. The results of these reviews have been published as follows:

• Cambodia: Towards an improved labour market information system (ILO/EASMAT, Bangkok, January 1996)
• Labour statistics in Cambodia: What needs to be done? (ILO/EASMAT, Bangkok, January 1996) This publication repeats the summary Chapter 1 of the above.
• Directory of labour statistics and statistical capabilities in Lao PDR (ILO/EASMAT, Bangkok, June 1996) - prepared under ADB-funded project TA 2326-LAO.
• Nepal labour statistics: Review and recommendations (ILO Kathmandu, July 1996).

Headquarters activities in the region

The ILO Bureau of Statistics, Geneva, undertook in excess of 20 missions to countries in the ESCAP region as follows: Armenia (3), Azerbaijan (3), Cambodia (2), Indonesia, Iran, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines (4), Russian Federation (3), Tajikistan, Thailand (several), Turkey (several) and Uzbekistan.

Some of these missions related to the development of surveys to measure the economic activity of children and employment in the informal sector, and others were to assist countries not covered by ILO/EASMAT, Bangkok.

Three regional workshops and seminars were organised by ILO Bureau of Statistics, Geneva, and attended by nationals from the region covered by ESCAP. These were:

• Joint ILO/GOSKOMSTAT of Russia Meeting of Experts on the harmonisation of labour force data collected from different sources, December 1994, Moscow
• Joint ILO/Czech Statistical Office Meeting on Statistical Treatment of Persons on Extended Types of Leave, November 1995, Prague
• Joint CIS STAT/ILO Workshop on Occupational Classifications, November 1995, Moscow.

ILO Bureau of Statistics, Geneva, financed the translation into Russian of a number of technical documents on labour statistics and also prepared comments on household-based labour force surveys and establishment-based employment surveys for Kyrgyzstan, Russian Federation and Kazakhstan.

The ILO has also provided resource people for a number of other workshops and seminars organised by other organisations and attended by staff from countries of the ESCAP region.

Occupational classifications

The ILO provided training in the development of national occupational classifications to a group of officials from China at the ILO's Turin Centre in April 1996.

An Experts' Meeting on National Occupational Classifications (funded by the ILO/Japan APSDEP programme, ILO's Turin Centre and the Government of China) was held in Haikou (China), 2-5 September 1996 and was attended by ten experts from the ministries of labour, national statistical offices or skills standards agencies from China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nepal, Singapore and Viet Nam and the territories of Hong Kong and Macau. ILO Bureau of Statistics, Geneva and ILO/EASMAT provided resource persons.

International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC)

The ILO's IPEC programme was launched in 1992 with funds from Germany. Other donors have since joined Germany in supporting the programme. Within the framework of IPEC, the ILO's Bureau of Statistics, Geneva, initiated work in four countries (two of them in the ESCAP region, India and Indonesia) to develop methodological approaches and concepts, definitions, etc for use in conducting child labour surveys at the national level.

In this respect, ILO's Bureau of Statistics, Geneva, has undertaken missions to a number of countries in the region during 1995/96 to assist in the adoption and further development of the survey approaches and their implementation in the field. A few of the countries have already carried out such surveys and have produced comprehensive statistical data on the level, nature and determinants of child labour in all its facets.

On the basis of the results of the experimented methodologies and other surveys undertaken recently, a detailed technical guide on child labour sample surveys has been drafted for finalisation and publication in early 1997 as an ILO manual to be distributed worldwide for use by individual countries.

Informal sector surveys

An ILO interdepartmental programme which started in 1994 included large-scale statistical surveys to develop and test methodologies for the measurement of employment in urban informal sector activities. Surveys were undertaken in Manila, Bogota and Dar es Salaam.

A Working Paper (by Mr Hussmanns of the ILO Bureau of Statistics, Geneva) entitled "Informal sector statistics: Coverage and methodologies - Questionnaires" (IDP INF./WP-7, ILO, June 1996) provides a summary description of the survey methodology and contains the questionnaires used.

During 1995/96, the ILO Bureau of Statistics, Geneva, undertook four missions to the National Statistical Office, Manila in connection with the 1995 Urban Informal Sector Survey in Metro Manila. The review and evaluation of this survey is still proceeding and a final survey report is expected in the beginning of 1997.

In addition, two papers entitled:

• "ILO recommendations on methodologies concerning informal sector data collection" and
• "ILO assistance on methodologies concerning informal sector data collection in Tanzania, the Philippines and Colombia as part of the Interdepartmental Project on the Urban Informal Sector"

Migrant workers

The ILO interdepartmental project on migrant workers was recently completed and a number of documents released. One document (prepared by Mr Hoffmann and Ms Lawrence of the ILO Bureau of Statistics) is entitled Statistics on international labour migration: A review of sources and methodological issues and provides useful suggestions on the preparation of statistics in this field.

Other assistance

ILO/EASMAT arranged a study tour on labour statistics (February-March 1995) under the Japan multi-bilateral cooperation programme. Eleven participants from the East and South Asia sub-regions visited Thailand (13-14 February), Singapore (15-18 February), Australia (19-24 February) and Japan (25 February to 3 March 1996). The study tour fellows held consultations with and were given training by the ministries of labour and/or national statistical offices in each country.

Other items on the agenda of the Committee of Statistics, Tenth Session

The ILO has been active in other areas which will be discussed during the Tenth Session of the Committee of Statistics as follows:

• Agenda 7a (Gender statistics) - The current international standards for the measurement of economic activity are consistent with the definitions of production as specified in the current System of National Accounts. The ILO recommends that survey enumerators should take care to not overlook selected activities (such as firewood collection, water carrying, processing of primary products) which are often carried out by women and children.
• Agenda 7b (Poverty estimation) - The ILO has a strong interest in poverty alleviation and is investigating the role that it can play in the measurement of poverty, and in the problems of developing relevant statistics.
• Agenda 8 (Statistical implications of the Cairo, Copenhagen and Beijing global conferences) -The ILO was represented on the Expert Group, which considered the statistical implications of these global conferences. The report of that Expert Group is to be considered by the Tenth Session of the Committee of Statistics under Agenda 8. The opportunity is taken here to indicate that the ILO places high priority on the implementation of the resolutions of these conferences and is available to assist countries of the region in developing or improving statistics to support and monitor the action programmes arising from the conferences.

Future work plan (Agenda 11)

The future work plan of the ILO continues to envisage technical advisory, training and other assistance to countries of the region. As already mentioned, countries requiring this assistance should contact the responsible ILO Area Office through their Ministry of Labour or write directly to ESCAP's Statistics Division.

Bangkok
November 1996