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TOKYO, Feb. 18-- Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Monday he in no way ordered the labor ministry to alter its methods for collecting data through a key monthly survey. Abe told a Diet committee that he takes a serious view of the matter and maintained that expertise and reliability are required to ensure the statistics are legitimate. The Japanese leader conceded, however, that erroneous methods for collecting key data on wages and working hours may have gone unnoticed for as long as 15 years. It was revealed recently that Abe's secretary, four years ago, may have expressed concern that the labor ministry had changed its survey samples. According to calls from the opposition camp, the labor ministry may have come under pressure to ensure that the data it was collecting and compiling reflected the success of the prime minister's blend of economic policies known as "Abenomics." Abe said he knew the wage growth statistics for June 2017 were affected by the changing of samples, adding he himself had not issued any changes to the sampling methodology. In addition, the prime minister rejected claims that the statistics had been manipulated to make real wages look higher than was in fact the case. Abe said he had never referred to the labor ministry's monthly survey statistics to prove that wages were increasing. The latest setback to hit the prime minister and the labor ministry stems from the embattled ministry admitting that multiple flaws in surveys related to jobs and wages had been uncovered, with erroneous methods of data gathering revealed to have been used to gather official governmental statistics. | 
