Stats SA to revamp jobless data collection

South Africa’s statistics agency plans to resume face-to-face interviews and increase publicity for its quarterly unemployment surveys after response rates plunged following the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.

The response rate fell to a low of 45% in the latest unemployment data, from an average of 77% in the second quarter of 2020, as the agency shifted to using computer-assisted phone interviews when movement was restricted to curb the pandemic’s spread and in-person field surveys were halted, Statistician General Risenga Maluleke said from the capital, Pretoria, on Tuesday.

The fourth quarter unemployment numbers excluded data from some regions where it was considered unreliable because of the insufficient number of responses.

While South Africa’s situation isn’t unique, persistently low data collection rates could “serve as a warning that the first published estimates may not be accurately reflecting the reality,” Absa Group Ltd. Senior Economist Miyelani Maluleke said in a note earlier this year that looked at how the virus had disrupted traditional economic data measurement.

“We are going back to visiting people in their homes to collect information from the current quarter,” Malerato Mosiane, the agency’s chief director for labour statistics, said in an interview.

This would increase the response rate and avoid the pitfalls of phone interviews such as people dropping the call before the data is submitted or not answering, she said.