Labor Statistics

The Department of Statistics of the Ministry of Justice and Labor of Paraguay, in its interest of having a Database with reliable statistics, requested from the Ministry of Labor, Employment and Social Security (MTEySS) of Argentina its technical assistance regarding the elaboration of labor statistics. Coincidentally, the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare of Guatemala requested the same technical assistance from the MTEySS.
Given that the objectives of both countries were very similar, and taking into account that the assistance was requested from the MTEySS, the RIAL Fund supported the idea of carrying out this joint cooperation. And so, three officers from Paraguay and other two officers from Guatemala, arrived in Buenos Aires to witness firsthand the Argentinean experience in the area of labor statistics.
 
During the cooperation activity, the different adopted measures by Argentina to strengthen the performance of the MTEySS were identified. Also, information on legal framework, data-collection instruments, observatories, integration of various offices of the Ministry, and dissemination of valuable information for the population were all items covered in this visit. Mainly, the three basic dimensions of labor statistics were discussed: collection, analysis and dissemination, with the objective of apprehending adaptable information to the institutional context of each country. 
 
According to the officers from Paraguay, this cooperation activity made possible for them the recognition that the Labor Statistics Section of the Ministry of Justice and Labor can assume a leading role inside the institutional life of that same entity. According to the observations,  this goal can be achieved through the adoption of managerial measures, such as the initiation of construction processes of databases from other offices of the Ministry that aim the strengthening of the mentioned Section. In the same way, the budgetary allocations matched to the needs of infrastructure and specialized personnel are key elements to build a modern statistics system, dynamic and reliable, that would constitute a permanent, useful and efficient source of information in order to propitiate the progress and social welfare of Paraguay.  
 
On the other hand, the officers from Guatemala underlined various lessons learnt from this cooperation activity. One that they specially highlighted was that avoiding the concentration of statistics, far from being a weakness, can be a strength if each one of the offices has a clear vision and mission of their efforts, accomplishing the expected result. Among the next steps stated in their Final Report, the following can be found: establishment of a work plan to achieve agreements with other institutions of the Government to share information on the labor market, the creation of a internal information network, the establishment of standards to create a labor observatory with limited resources, and the proposing of a project to improve the dissemination of strategic data generated from within the Ministry.