Minister raised concern that stats agency phraseology implied job discrimination
Dermot Nesbitt, then an Ulster Unionist junior minister, flagged the issue with the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (Nisra) in 2000.

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Your support makes all the difference.A unionist minister raised concerns with statisticians in Northern Ireland that their terminology for employment figures was inadvertently suggesting discrimination was a factor.
Ulster Unionist junior minister Dermot Nesbitt addressed the issue with senior figures in the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (Nisra) in 2000, according to newly released files from the archives.
Mr Nesbitt was referring to the phraseology employed by Nisra when reporting on the differential in employment rates of Protestants and Catholics.
The then South Down MLA raised particular concern about the term ātwice as likelyā in respect of Nisra reporting that Catholics are twice as likely to be unemployed as Protestants.
He claimed the term suggested there was inequality at play and highlighted that Sinn Fein politician Conor Murphy, in a recent debate, had made a direct link between the unemployment rates and discrimination.
According to a minute of Mr Nesbittās meeting with Nisra on June 16 2000, he āexpressed reservationsā that such wording from the agency ācould lead to misinterpretation and the implication that unemployment is as a result of discriminationā.
The agency agreed to consider the points raised by the minister and come back to him with a āmeasured responseā.
The then chief executive of Nisra, Edgar Jardine, wrote to Mr Nesbitt one month later, setting out the agencyās position.
He suggested Nisra would be open to revising some of its terminology.
Mr Jardine wrote: āBy using the term ātwice as likelyā we were simply trying to state that the unemployment rate of Catholics was twice the Protestant rate; we had not construed our terminology as inferring that Catholic and Protestant job applicants do not have the same chance of getting a job (indeed that the two communities do have similar success rates is confirmed by the analysis of applicants and appointments undertaken by the Equality Commission).
āHowever, it would not be our intention to use potentially ambiguous language to describe fair employment statistics or to use terms that may give rise to inferences we would not wish to make.
āI do not therefore believe that there is a point of professional or statistical integrity at stake in using alternative terminology when referring to the difference in unemployment rates between Protestants and Catholics.
āThis would imply substituting ātwice as likelyā by stating that āthe Catholic unemployment rate is twice the Protestant rateā.
āHowever, as the Minister will be aware, the complexities and subtleties associated with fair employment statistics and (sic ā āareā) not generally well understood and it is still possible that unwarranted conclusions will be drawn from the revised terminology.ā
Mr Jardine said he looked forward to āforthcoming discussionsā with the minister on the issue.