Govt plans to rejig job data collection

NEW DELHI: The government has finally woken up to the need for more accurate annual indicators of employment in the country and the nation's data collection machinery is also considering separate surveys to measure employment. At present, a comprehensive survey on employment/unemployment is carried out once in five years at the all-India level. As for annual data, the employment survey rides piggyback on the thin sample annual surveys conducted by the National Statistical Survey Organisation and most often the data is skewed as the sample selection depends on the focus of the annual survey. For instance, the NSSO 56 focused on unorganised sector manufacturing and in the 57th round, the focus is on unorganised sector services. These annual surveys cannot be deemed to be a survey on the subject of employment, Planning Commission sources said. These sources said the department of statistics has agreed to consider a Planning Commission recommendation for a rigorous enquiry into employment status of the population after some initial misgivings. The department has also agreed to provide annual estimates of employment on current daily status basis. For collecting employment data on current daily status basis, the interviewer is required to seek information about employment status of each person of the sample household for every half day of the week preceding the day of the interview. Until now, the annual surveys of NSSO collected information on employment on usual status and current weekly status basis. The usual status approach enquired about employment status of a person for the 365 days preceding the survey. The current weekly status approach enquired about employment status for the week preceding the survey. Planning Commission sources point out that although the current weekly status approach indicated the level of employment in the country, it did not give an accurate picture of levels of underemployment and unemployment in the country. Incidentally, the proposal for more rigorous enquiry on employment and annual surveys has emanated from the government's desire to assess the effectiveness of the various employment generation programmes and achievement of targets. Sources point out that after setting a target of creating 10m new jobs for every year of the 10th plan period as desired by the Prime Minister, the government required a monitorable indicator to track the achievement of the target. These sources said if such data is available on an annual basis, instead of every five years, it will allow the government to effect course corrections, if required, to ensure targets don't go awry.

Govt plans to rejig job data collection

The government has finally woken up to the need for more accurate annual indicators of employment in the country and the nation's data collection machinery is also considering separate surveys to measure employment.

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