<h1>Economist Criticizes Official Unemployment Data, Cites Underreporting and Calls for Transparency</h1> An economist and former state finance minister criticized the central government's official unemployment data, alleging it significantly understates actual joblessness. He argued that the government's reliance on the Periodic Labour Force Survey, which counts minimal economic activity as employment, results in misleadingly low unemployment figures around 4.9 percent. Referencing a survey of global economists and alternative data from a private monitoring agency, he contended that the real unemployment rate is closer to 8 percent, with over 40 million individuals unemployed. The critique highlighted concerns about youth unemployment constituting a large portion of the jobless population and called for greater transparency and accuracy in official reporting to address public distrust.