The controversy over government figures on employment took another twist yesterday when the statistics watchdog issued revised data for the gainfully occupied.

The Malta Statistics Authority said the revised data gave “a better statistical representation” of the employment situation, adding that a comment by the National Statistics Office was “not correct”.

It was referring to a news release issued by the statistics office on September 11 in which it was remarked that “public administration and defence, compulsory social security and administrative and support service activities contributed mostly to the increase in employment”.

It said it would be looking into the matter to improve the quality of future NSO releases.

The development follows criticism by Finance Minister Edward Scicluna in relation to the NSO, accusing it of not giving a true picture of the employment situation. Prof. Scicluna said on Monday there was no spike in public sector employees, insisting that the reported increase was due to a new method used to classify government employees.

A comment by the National Statistics Office was not correct

He was reacting to comments by the Opposition that, going by NSO figures, in the first 13 months of Labour, the public sector had soared by more than 2,000 employees.

Prof. Scicluna said that about 2,800 workers who were previously serving with the Resources Ministry to do public works had been reclassified under public administration. In the past, they had been grouped under the construction sector. The reclassification, he said, was the reason behind the rise in public sector employment and the decline in the construction industry.

NSO director general Michael Pace Ross told this newspaper the reclassification had no bearing at all on the size of the government workforce. Resource Ministry employees had always been considered as part of the civil service, he said.

The MSA echoed the points raised by Prof. Scicluna. It said that, in its statistical analysis covering the period from April 2013 to the corresponding month this year, it had taken into account the fact that 3,050 full-time government employees had been reclassified by the NSO. As a result, the increase in full-time employees in the public administration amounted to 265 and not 3,315, as cited by the NSO, the statistics watchdog noted.

Moreover the MSA pointed out that when excluding this reclassification, employment in the construction industry would have risen by 195 and not declined by 2,855, as NSO figures had indicated.

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