The difference is not an insignificant one. The first figure was supplied by the Employment Bureau and shows the number of people registered as looking for a job, while the second figure is the preliminary findings of an employment survey that has recently been carried out in Croatia. The official unemployment rate in Croatia was much higher before the Bureau of Statistics counted those in the police and army, as well as those engaged in agriculture, among the number of employed. This decrease has not been because of dramatic developments in the labour market, but because the criteria for measuring this particular economic indicator have changed. Some of these statistical uncertainties may amuse the informed, but they also have their grave side.
Nobody spends so much money on statistics because they are useless.
It is not without reason that they are often the subject of important debate. Even a casual observer would have noticed last year's debate surrounding the growth in GDP or the size of investments. However, even countries with a more developed system of statistics are not immune to similar problems. The difference between the debate in Croatia and that in more developed countries lies in the level of statistical knowledge and the sophistication with which the debate is conducted. Since in Croatia there is a high degree of uncertainty surrounding estimates of economic indicators, the question arises whether it is possible to conduct sound economic policy without a relatively reliable knowledge of the trends of basic economic variables.