Innovations in labour statistics

This perspective explains a number of innovations that will begin showing up in national and international data in the next few years as a result of the collective decisions taken by labour statisticians in late 1998. The statisticians tackled several difficult subjects, including how best to measure total earnings from work (not just basic wages); and how to define and then measure underemployment, in order to capture in labour statistics that category of people who are neither fully employed in gainful work nor totally unemployed.