Starting this month, the Centre is kicking off an unprecedented employment survey to capture employment data across all sectors as well as generate future projections for the job market based on employers? outlooks. The decision to undertake an annual employment survey comes on the back of the global slowdown, which forced the Centre to order quick quarterly surveys to assess the extent of job losses in the worst-hit industries.
While employment is a key economic indicator and moves markets across the world, India?s official economic statistics, included in reports such as the Economic Survey, simply skip the job numbers. The only official report on employment comes out every five years, when the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) releases data on employment and unemployment. The NSSO and Central Statistical Organisation also reveal employment trends in the Annual Survey of Industries, but this only includes formal manufacturing jobs and the findings are released after a few years? lag.
?For the first time, we are conducting a survey on employment,? labour and employment secretary Prabhat Chandra Chaturvedi told FE. ?Unfortunately, the NSSO does its employment report every five years so we don?t have any yearly data. We are thinking that there should be an annual survey. Despite all the policies in place for employment generation and reduction of poverty, we can?t plan properly unless we have proper, reliable data.?
The Labour Bureau, which will conduct the survey, has already begun work and it aims to complete on-the-ground activities by December-end. ?What is the status of employment?whether it has improved in some sectors and decreased in others? What are the projections for employment creation in different sectors in the immediate future? The survey will answer such queries,? the labour secretary explained.
Significantly, the survey will also cover employment in the unorganised or informal sector, which accounts for a 94% of India?s 400 million workforce. While India is acknowledged for its demographic gift of a large working-age population, the unemployment rate had risen from 6.1% in 1993-94 to 8.3% in 2004-05, according to the last NSSO data.
Unemployment rate among the youth is three times that of the adult unemployment rate, thanks to a serious demand-supply gap?12.8 million new workers are added every year but there are only 2.5 million skill training opportunities.
?Today, our decisions are based on extrapolations of NSSO?s 2004-05 data, with some assumptions. The government felt the need to have some authentic data, as sometimes, our perceptions can be different from the truth,? Chaturvedi said. The 2009 employment survey?s findings will be ready by February 2010 and incorporated into the ?report on employment? to be presented by the government to the people.
President Pratibha Patil, in her inaugural address to the 15th Lok Sabha, had promised that the government would place five annual reports with the people?on employment, education, health, environment and infrastructure. Apart from the new survey?s results, the employment report would include chapters on mainstreaming employment, labour reforms and future strategies for economic growth.
Since the global economic slowdown hit home last September, the Labour Bureau has carried out three quick surveys to assess job losses, but these have covered only a few sectors and a few states. ?That was a quick survey given to us. The situation was so acute at that time that we were asked to do quick surveys. We took some statistical models and looked at a few sectors, just to get an idea of ground realities. But now we are doing a proper survey throughout the country,? Chaturvedi explained.
While the Centre has thrown sops at industry as part of its stimulus packages for the economy, it has been hard pressed to answer queries on job losses due to the lack of data. In the first quick survey undertaken by the bureau for the quarter after Lehman Brothers? collapse (October-December 2008), five lakh job losses were reported. Job losses have continued into this financial year, with the first quarter survey revealing 1.71 lakh lay-offs.