The elder who studied with me was the cong secratary. He would not include anyone in the reports who did not hand in a FS slip that month.
Hours may be exagerated, but the number of publishers reported is acurate. Many don't report and are not counted.
The increase reported is very small, most countries have none and a number show decreases.
There is a difference between the publisher figure that appears in the YB and the one the CO reports.
For instance, back in the early 80's I was told by a brother at Bethel that there were 2.9 million witnesses! But I was disappointed when the YB reported 2.6 million.
The brother told me the reason for the difference was because the YB figure includes only those who reported, the higher figure was the number the CO reported to the branch based on publisher record cards.
So in other words, the CO reports indicated based on the number of publisher record cards in the cong that there were 2.9 million pubs associating with the congreagations, but the peak publisher figure in the YB of 2.6 million was the number who reported FS.