*************************
The Census and Statistics Department (C&SD) today (April 15) issued a rectification of the wage index of the transport services sector in September 2008 and December 2008. The nominal and real wage indices of the transport services sector in September 2008 have been rectified from 151.0 and 116.1 to 155.8 and 119.7 respectively; while those in December 2008 have been rectified from 145.1 and 106.8 to 150.5 and 110.8 respectively.
A spokesman for the C&SD said, "In the Labour Earnings Survey (LES), manual computation has to be conducted using the information provided by certain establishments before they can be entered into the computer system. The anomaly was caused by an error when a field officer did the manual computation. Consequently, the related statistics had to be rectified."
The spokesman said, "We will deal with the situation seriously to uphold our professional ethics although it is an isolated case. Therefore, we have conducted a comprehensive review of the wage statistics compiled in the past three years and the related computation and have ascertained that all wage statistics are correct."
To prevent the recurrence of such incidents, C&SD has already implemented the following enhancement measures with immediate effect:
(i) To enhance data processing procedures to do away with the manual processing step to avoid similar computation errors;
(ii) To strengthen the sample quality check system and enhance the sensitivity tests in data collection and processing; and
(iii) To strengthen the data verification process. This means that if the average wage rate of an establishment shows significant quarter-to-quarter change after verification by the field officer concerned, the supervisor should arrange further checking of the case by another team of staff and if necessary, bring the case to the attention of the senior supervisor for perusal.
"As a professional department, the C&SD attaches great importance to the quality of the statistics it compiles," the spokesman said.
"We have adopted international statistical standards in respect of both data compilation and data dissemination. We have fully complied with the Special Data Dissemination Standard promulgated by the International Monetary Fund. We are confident that implementation of the above measures will prevent similar incidents from recurring."
After the rectifications, the overall wage indices for all the industry sectors covered by the survey have also been rectified accordingly. For details, please visit the C&SD website:
(1) Press release on "Wage and Payroll Statistics for September 2008"
http://www.censtatd.gov.hk/press_release/press_releases_on_statistics/index.jsp?sID=2259&sSUBID=13525&displayMode=D
(2) Press release on "Wage and Payroll Statistics for December 2008"
http://www.censtatd.gov.hk/press_release/press_releases_on_statistics/index.jsp?sID=2312&sSUBID=13531&displayMode=D
Ends/Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Issued at HKT 18:53
NNNN