mo4ch:>Oops! Japanese govt. says sorry for $0.5bn in unpaid benefits | Mo4ch News

The Japanese government is red-faced after discovering that, for over a decade, it has not been paying proper benefits because its labor ministry cut corners while collecting job data. Its 2019 budget could now be amended.At a news conference on Friday, Japan’s Labor Minister Takumi Nemoto offered a humble apology for the use of improper polling methods, which resulted in a failure to pay some 53.7 billion yen (about $495.7 million) in benefits between 2004 and 2017.“It is extremely regrettable that this problem occurred in (ministry) statistics, which form the foundation of policymaking and academic research,” he told reporters at a post-Cabinet meeting news conference. “I apologize from the bottom of my heart for causing people trouble.”The wage statistics, which are used to calculate things like unemployment benefits and accident compensations, is supposed to cover all Japanese businesses with at least 500 employees. But apparently only a third of such firms were polled in Tokyo. T…