The Economic Survey which accompanies the Budget speech and the estimates of revenue and expenditure for the coming year is a useful tool for economic analysts. The survey itself includes a lengthy analysis of the Maltese economy in the 12 months to September.

It is also replete with data supporting the commentary. It is that data which is of primary importance to non-government analysts who wish to carry their own independent ferreting. Unfortunately, it has become an established practice for much of the data carried in the survey to stop at mid-year - the end of June.

By the time the survey is published, usually the second or third week of November, such data is already rather dated.

The delay is not easy to understand. In recent years the National Office of Statistics has progressed by leaps and bounds and it regularly issues a stream of current data. Admittedly, in regard to some of the data the NSO has to warn that they are provisional, and so subject to review. But better provisional data than data delayed such that up-to-date analysis cannot be attempted.

Probably, the reason for this practice is not to be found within the NSO itself. The office is dependent on various sources external to it for raw data which it then processes for publication in the templates formed by it in accordance to Eurostat rules.

One set of data which is not out of date and presented up to September is that which concerns the registered unemployed. Aside from the Economic Survey the NSO publishes among its regular news releases statistics related to the number of those registering unemployment, along with descriptive tabular analysis.

It does so on the basis of data on the labour market supplied by the Employment and Training Corporation (ETC) which maintains an up-to-date database. The published data do not usually have to be revised. Within this catchment of statistics there remains some which is inordinately delayed. They consist of data relating to the unemployment rate. The NSO news release of labour market data for September contains the unemployment rate only up to May. The administrative data on the labour supply tends to come in late.

Still, the other data on the labour market is welcome for its promptness. This data has not been telling a happy story during 2009. That was certainly the case in September.

The total number of those officially seeking employment (part 1 and part 2 of the unemployment register) rose to 7,521 during the month. That meant that unemployment had continued to creep up, to stand at 1,425 more than what it was in September 2008. The ETC register also showed that the unemployed had been on it for quite longer in September 2009 than the previous year. The total duration this year of registrations less than 20 weeks jumped to 3,472 from 2,877 in September 2008.

That meant that new entrants to the labour market were finding it harder to get a job. Those registering for duration of between 21 and 52 weeks also rose sharply, from 1,122 to 1,602. That was another signal that jobs were becoming scarcer. The third definite and most worrying signal was offered by the total of registering unemployed for more than one year.

They went up to 2,447 from 2,009 12 months earlier. These totals represent the long-term unemployed in the Maltese Islands. The actual percentage rate was not available, in the absence of current labour supply figure. But it probably crept up as well. Rates aside, a total pool of long-term unemployed of 2,447, with scores more waiting to edge into that duration pool, is another clear indication that the labour market is under stress.

As always in this NSO news release, the totals quoted are for full-time employees. There could be opposite movements in the numbers of part-timers, though not necessarily so in the tourism sector in particular, given the weak summer experienced by that industry.

Part-timers have an important economic function since they reflect the possibility of flexibility within the economy, one of whose worst enemies is undue rigidity. Yet it is the totals of full-time jobs and those seeking them that are most significant in determining the state of health of an economy like ours.

The registered unemployed say this state is not good. There is a sickness around, which is becoming worse. That is also indicated by another descriptive table in the labour market news release under review that shows the occupations sought by individuals on the unemployment register. Craft and related trade workers, plant and machine operators and assemblers as well as technicians are the most numerous occupations looked for.

Add to them over 1,000 males and females seeking what are termed "elementary" occupations - meaning unskilled - and the picture becomes bleaker.

Like the poor, there will always be a number of unemployed. And compared to most other countries, we do not have such a disastrous position on our hands. But neither is it one which can continue to be accepted without fresh and strenuous efforts to make it less unhealthy.