TUCKED away from reports of the political and legal wrangles in Perak, I found a little nugget reported by Bernama. The title was “Russia makes monthly jobless data secret”. According to the story, Russia’s statistics office intends to keep secret the monthly jobless data because the soaring unemployment rates in the country affect consumer confidence and pose a threat to social stability.
Nevertheless, Russia will still reveal jobless rates every quarter. Reuters’s calculates that unemployment rates hit 11.9% in March. About 500,000 Russians lost their jobs in January, 300,000 in February, and the latest data suggest a record of 700,000 in March.
Although the Human Resources Ministry has been open about unemployment rates, it was not lost on me that Malaysia could make unemployment rates an official secret, no questions asked.
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