1. THE BUREAU OF STATISTICS OF THE ILO
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Patrick Cornu, I work in the ILO Bureau of statistics where I am responsible of what we call a Project area dealing with the statistical databases and the data collection and dissemination program . My presentation will have two parts, in the first one I will briefly present the activities of the Bureau of statistics and in the 2nd part I will present the Internet application which makes our databases available on the web through Internet and I will show you how to use it.
Patrick Cornu
November 1999
International Labour Office

2. International Labour Office
ACTIVITIES
setting international standards in the field of labour statistics
technical cooperation
data collection and dissemination
The main activities of the ILO Bureau of statistics consist of first to elaborate standards in labour statistics, the second is to provide technical cooperation and advice in this domain, and to organize training courses in labour statistics and the third is to collect and disseminate data for all the countries in the world.
November 1999
International Labour Office

3. INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS
Convention 160
Recommendation 170
resolutions of the International Conferences of Labour Statisticians ( )
16th ICLS (October 1998)
underemployment
income from employment
occupational injuries
internationals standard classifications (ISCO-88)
The Bureau of statistics is at the origin of the Convention 160 which was adopted by the International Conference of the ILO in 1985 and which provides a basic framework for a minimum national labour statistics programme. This Convention is associated to the Recommendation 170 which gives more deatailed information on the Convention 160.
The Bureau of statistics has its own conference, the International Conference of Labour Statisticians, which was held in 1923 for the first time and which is organized every 5 years on average. This conference adopts resolutions which can be considered as international recommendations. The 16th ICLS adopted in October 1998 three resolutions, on the measurement of underemployment, the second one on the measurement of income from employment, and the third one on occupational injuries. It takes 8 years to elaborate a resolution which is usually valid for about 20 years.
Another standard setting activity of the Bureau is to elaborate Internationaal standard classifications, such as the International standard classification of occupations (ISCO) which was finalized in 1988.
November 1999
International Labour Office

4. TECHNICAL COOPERATION
technical consultancies
national projects
elaboration of national classifications based on ISCO-88
training courses
The technical cooperation activities of the Bureau consist broadly speaking in helping the countries to implement the international recommendations set up by the ILO. This can take the form of consultancy missions in the countries and of technical support to statistical projects. They can also consist in organizing seminars, conferences and workshops in regions or countries, and in helping countries to develop their own national classifications based on ISCO-88. In 1991, the ILO Bureau os statistics has launched a programme of international training courses in labour statistics which are regularly organised, every 2 years in english and french.
November 1999
International Labour Office

5. International Labour Office
DATA DISSEMINATION
statistical databases: 190 countries, time-series from 1969
printed publications
Yearbook
Bulletin (quarterly)
October inquiry results
statistical sources and methods series
other means of dissemination
databases extracts in electronic form
LABORSTA on the web
The Bureau of statistics collects and disseminates data for 190 countries, and some time-series start in These data are stored in statistical databases which are used to produce our printed regular publication, the Yearbook of Labour statistics, the Bulletin of Labour statistics and its Supplement, which are quarterly publications. The Bureau publishes also the Results of the October Inquiry which collects data on wages and hours of work for 159 occupations and prices of 93 food products. It also produces the methodological publications of the Statistical sources and methods series which present information on the sources of the data.
Besides these traditional forms of dissemination, the Bureau provides users with extracts from its databases on electronic form and through Internet. This activity will be developed in the second part of my presentation.
November 1999
International Labour Office

6. International Labour Office
LABORSTA ON THE WEB
Which I entitled LABORSTA on the web.
Patrick Cornu
November 1999
International Labour Office

7. International Labour Office
LABORSTA
generic for the statistical databases of the ILO Bureau of Statistics (STAT)
data
methodological information
used to produce printed publications
LABORSTA is a generic term for the ILO LABOUR STAtistics databases. These databases contain statistical data, and also methodological textual information. And are used to produce the Bureau’s publications. Recently the Bureau has developed an Internet application to provide these data to a wider range of users taking advantage of the Internet technology.
November 1999
International Labour Office

8. International Labour Office
LABORSTA ON THE WEB
dynamic application
accessed through Internet
contains data
contains text
This application is a dynamic application because it consists of HTML pages which are generated following the users’ requests and sent back to them.
The interaction between the application and the users is done through Internet, there is no permanent connection to the database.
And the application contains statistical data and also text.
November 1999
International Labour Office

9. International Labour Office
DATA
data communicated to the ILO since 1969 on:
employment
unemployment
wages
hours of work
labour cost
occupational injuries
strikes and lockouts
nearly 60,000 time-series
The application contains time-series, some of which start in It covers the following topics of labour statistics:
employment
unemployment
wages
hours of work
labour cost
occupational injuries
and strikes and lockouts.
These data are available for about 190 countries and this represents almost 60,000 time-series.
November 1999
International Labour Office

10. International Labour Office
TEXT
concepts and definitions, resolutions extracts
international standard classifications
explanatory notes
methodological information on data
But this application does not contain only figures and numbers. It contains also all the textual information needed to use and analyze the data. These texts cover the definitions, concepts and extracts of resolutions used to define the statistics, the international standard classifications used to disaggregate the data, the explanatory notes, indications of breaks in the time-series, and the methodological information on the sources of the data. This makes it an electronic publication which contains more than 20 printed yearbooks and 10 volumes of the statistical sources and methods publications.
November 1999
International Labour Office

11. International Labour Office
APPLICATION FEATURES
the application allows users to view, print and download data
it has a on-line “Help”
minimizes user’s navigation needed to access data
is free of charge
The application allow users to select, view, print and download the data. It does not require any specific software on the user’s machine, but an Internet browser such as Netscape navigator or Microsoft Internet explorer. It has a on-line help which can be consulted in a separate window. In developing this application, we tried to minimize the number of screens which the users has to go through to reach the data, and therefore to minimize the number of clicks which had to be performed by the users.
Last but not least, for the time being the application is free of charge.
November 1999
International Labour Office

12. International Labour Office
FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS
to include all of the data collected and stored in STAT
to make it available also in French and Spanish
to keep it free of charge
The developments which will be undertaken in the future will be to progressively increase the contents to all of our data, to make it available not only in English but also in French and Spanish, and to keep it free of charge.
November 1999
International Labour Office

13. International Labour Office
URL:
The address of this application is the following: and now I will demonstrate how to use it.
November 1999
International Labour Office