DSEC prepares for ‘Population By-census’

Kong Pek Fong

The Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) will launch the “Population By-census” in 2016. In preparing for the project, the bureau will commence the trial survey next year.
A population census is conducted every ten years, with a by-census usually in the middle of the intercensal period.
On the sidelines of the opening ceremony of a photo exhibition that commemorated the 30th anniversary of DSEC’s establishment, the bureau’s director Kong Pek Fong said that a government inter-departmental task group has already been working on the contents of the questionnaire used in the trial survey and by-census. She also commented on the possibility of expenses cuts to her department and a shortage in human resources.
Kong Pek Fong said that the most important event in the next year and the year after would be the “2016 Population By-census.” It will detail how the structure of the population, including age, gender and employment, has changed after the 2011 Population Census.
In order to prepare for 2016, a trial survey will be launched next year. “We have already formed a government inter-departmental task group to look into some of the basic components [of the trial] such as creating the questionnaire. We hope to confirm the final version and the contents of the questionnaire at the end of the year,” director Kong said.
She suggested that although the scale of the by-census will not be as large as that of the Population Census, the amount of preparation is actually the same. She said that her wish is to use electronic devices protected by passwords to collect data, in order to process it in a faster and safer manner.
Moreover, government departments are preparing for their 2015 budget. The Education and Youth Affairs Bureau has already indicated that they are going to reduce their expenses in recruitment. When asked about the spending on the trial survey, the director indicated that since the trial is only to test-run the whole system, the expenses will be relatively small.
“The scale of the trial survey next year will not be as big as a formal census. It may only involve around 10,000 families. (…) The major objective is to test the feasibility of the questionnaire and to see if there could be problems arising from the calculation of data collected through the questionnaire. (…) The expenses required [for the trial] will be very different from the formal census. Even if there is really a need for expenses cuts, we can also make adjustments in other aspects and be able to handle it,” she said.
Kong Pek Fong also revealed that DSEC has always been recruiting new staff. The bureau is also going to witness a retirement peak in the upcoming two years. “However, statistics and census are some semi-professional aspects. Therefore, we are not going to accept every applicant. The selection will be strict and hence [the recruitment] is relatively slow. But we try to use information technology and ask our current staff members to contribute more in order to temporarily supplement the lack of human resources,” she said.
Furthermore, Ms Kong reckoned that being labor-intensive is a characteristic of statistics and census workers. “However, there has been a large demand for human resources since the sovereignty handover, and the supply is seriously lacking. After all, the population in Macau is limited. Therefore, DSEC used to have more than 300 staff members before the handover, which marks the peak. But now we have only around 220 people,” she said.
The director also stated that the reduction in staff numbers is accomplished through the introduction of information technology. “We hope that after reducing the amount of workers, efficiency can be maintained or even improved,” she said.
Ms Kong added that through introducing online and electronic data collection, the resources spent on data entry and review can be reduced, with more time and human resources saved. The director also believes that another advantage of using online data collection is that people can provide their information round-the-clock without facing temporal or spatial restrictions.

High data accuracy

Kong Pek Fong claimed that there is a standard requirement in terms of the accuracy, transparency and coverage of official statistics. “It is only after all these requirements are fulfilled that we will release the data. If we have any doubts regarding any data before it is released, we will review it again,” she said. She also suggested that apart from the figures, it is also crucial to interpret the numbers accurately. “People will have different feelings about the same set of data if it is interpreted differently. Therefore, no matter if it is used for government policy or residents, we will have professional staff explain the numbers to the data users so that people can use that data correctly and know the meaning behind the numbers. This is how statistics can help people and government administration,” she said.