Aimed at bridging the data deficit with regard to employment, the labour ministry will come out with an improvised version of quarterly employment survey (QES) starting this year, covering 18 sub-sectors under eight main sectors such as manufacturing, construction, health and trade, with ample samples, as it feels the current practice fails to produce a wholesome picture.

“Considering the importance of QES due to its periodicity and results, it was decided to conduct the QES on a large scale by enlarging the sample size and sectors covered under the survey so that the results of the survey are reflective of the changing employment scenario in the non-farm sector for the country as a whole,” a labour ministry source said. Initially, the proposed QES will help in creation of a strong employment-related database in organised sector on quarterly basis and in later stages, it also envisages coverage to unorganised sector, he added.

The eight main sectors that would be covered now are — manufacturing, construction, trade, transport, education, health, accommodation and restaurants, and IT/BPOs. Along with sub-sectors, these would cover around 84% of the employment in the non-farm sector of the economy.

Earlier, the QES used to cover sectors like textiles, leather, metal, automobile, gems & jewellery, transport, IT/BPO and handloom/ powerloom.

The labour ministry believes that the existing practice does not reflect the overall situation of the employment scenario in the country.

“In order to generate rough but quick estimates of changes in employment in different sectors of the economy, QES was conducted in selected labour-intensive and export-oriented sectors which are more likely to be affected by the global economic slowdown,” the official said.

The first such survey for the quarter October-December, 2008 was undertaken during January, 2009. The labour bureau has already come out with its 28th survey reports.

Data collection and processing will be done by staff on contract as sanctioned by the ministry. Earlier, regular staff of the labour bureau used to do the field operation by withholding some of the important regular schemes, namely socio-economic surveys of different segments of labour and Occupational Wage Survey (OWS) etc.

Sensing the need to widen the scope of the survey, the labour ministry had in June last year constituted an expert group to examine and finalise the coverage as well as sample size of the QES in order to generate comprehensive information on the employment front. It was also asked to assess the resources required in terms of manpower and financial for conducting the QES.