TOKYO, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- A new report compiled by a panel of experts indicated that officials at Japan's labor ministry were responsible for the erroneous complication of key jobs and wages data that has plagued the ministry, sources here said Wednesday.
The panel, comprising statistical experts and lawyers, compiled the report based on interviews held with around 60 officials at the labor ministry and found that numerous officials including high-ranking members, were responsible for the flawed compilation of data.
The report also intimated that a climate of ambivalence existed within the labor ministry towards the gravity and importance of public statistics.
"We will make efforts to regain public trust and ensure a similar case does not happen again," Health, Labor and Welfare Minister Takumi Nemoto was quoted as saying upon receiving the report.
Along with the officials responsible for the compilation of flawed data, opposition parties have taken aim at the Japanese government, accusing it of deliberately releasing faulty data in an attempt to overly qualify the success of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's "Abenomics" brand of economic policies.
The opposition camp has also accused Abe of ordering the alteration to the data himself.
According to calls from the opposition camp, the labor ministry might have come under pressure to ensure that the data it was collecting and compiling reflected the success of the prime minister's "Abenomics" economic policies package.
While admitting that he knew the wage growth statistics for June 2015 were affected by the changing of samples, Abe said that he himself had not issued any changes to the sampling methodology.
In addition, the prime minister has rejected claims that the statistics had been manipulated to make real wages look higher than was in fact the case.
Abe said that he had never referred to the labor ministry's monthly survey statistics to prove that wages were increasing.
In January last year, however, the ministry started using software to make it appear that the necessary data had been collected, leading to a sudden rise in wage figures, the latest report said, as reported by local media Wednesday.
The Japanese leader has conceded, however, that erroneous methods for collecting key data on wages and working hours, may have gone unnoticed for as long as 15 years.
The flawed surveys, it has been revealed, resulted in the ministry's basic statistics on wage structure being compiled using faulty methods and the calculation of minimum wages being incorrect based on the erroneous figures.
The ministry has said that the survey, which purportedly aims to provide a clear gauge of wage payment and structure based on employment type or occupation, had seen ministry inspectors cut numerous yet vital corners in collecting the key data.
The labor ministry has also come under fire for releasing faulty jobs and wage data spanning a period of a decade or more that resulted in more than 20 million people not receiving their full benefits.
By the labor ministry's own admissions, top bureaucrats and other senior officials at the ministry knowingly and systematically covered up the improper method for collecting the data, which serves as a recognized barometer of the nation's overall employment situation.
The improper method used for data collection has led to the government being forced to revise the state budget for fiscal 2019 and address the fact that unemployment insurance and workers' compensation in some fields, applicable to 20.15 million people and to the tune of 53.75 billion yen (486.36 million U.S. dollars), has gone unpaid.
