New Delhi: Labour Bureau has been conducting the Quarterly Employment Survey (New Series) since April, 2016 with the objective of measuring relative change in employment situation over successive quarters in sizeable segment of Non-farm Industrial economy covering 8 major sectors viz. Manufacturing, Construction, Trade, Transport, Education, Health, Accommodation & Restaurants and IT/BPO. Establishments having 10 or more workers are covered in this survey. These 8 sectors constitute around 81% of the total employment of units with 10 or more workers (Organized sector) in the Sixth Economic Census (6th EC).
The results of the first report revealed that total estimated employment as on 1st April, 2016 in the 8 selected sectors was 205.22 lakh. The successive reports from second quarter of Quarterly Employment Survey (QES) upto sixth quarter of QES revealed a consistent positive change in estimated employment by 77 thousand in second quarter i.e. 1st July 2016 over 1st April 2016, followed by 32 thousand in third, 1.22 lakh in the fourth quarter, 1.85 lakh in the fifth and 64 thousand in sixth quarter.
The results of the current, Seventh QES Report, once again reveal that there was an overall robust positive change of 1.36 lakh workers over the previous quarter i.e. 1st Oct, 2017 over 1st July, 2017, across 8 sectors at all India level. The annual change in employment for seventh round of QES over the corresponding period of preceding year (i.e. 01 Oct 2017 over 1st Oct 2016) reflects an increase of 2.5%. The sectoral break up revealed that there were positive changes in 7 out of 8 sectors viz. Manufacturing Sector (+89 thousand), Education Sector (+21 thousand), Transport Sector (+20 thousand), Trade Sector (+14 thousand), Health Sector (+11 thousand), Accommodation & Restaurant Sector (+2 thousand), IT/BPO Sector (+1 thousand) and only a small negative change in one sector viz. Construction Sector (-22 thousand) over last Quarter. Within construction, this negative change is attributed to construction of buildings and building completion and finishing. This may be due to seasonal activities as well as festivities.
Out of the total estimated change in Employment of 1.36 lakh, Female workers accounted for a change of (+) 74 thousand and Male workers accounted for a change of (+) 62 thousand. The number of Regular workers also marked a significant positive change of 65 thousand followed by a positive change of 44 thousand and 23 thousand in Contract and Casual workers respectively.
The results of Quarterly Employment Survey should strictly be interpreted in the light of Limitations of QES mentioned below.
The Sixth Economic Census (2013-14), revealed that there were 58.5 million establishments in operation employing 131.29 million persons. Further, out of 58.5 million establishments, 1.4% establishments were employing 10 or more persons. The list of all these establishments, employing 10 or more workers, in aforesaid eight major sectors in Sixth Economic Census (6thEC) was used as the sampling frame for present QES survey.
Since the frame of QES (New Series) has been drawn from 6thEC, the coverage of QES excluded all the activities which were outside the purview of 6th EC. Further, broad activities which were covered by 6th EC but excluded from the coverage of QES i.e. sectors other than selected eight sectors are Financial & Insurance activities, Agricultural activities other than Crop Production, other services not elsewhere classified etc.
Further, the QES does not capture the employment data from new units which emerged after the 6th EC. The Fieldwork for 6th EC was conducted during January, 2013 to April, 2014. Effectively the QES is covering employment trends in establishments having an employment size of about 2.40 crore workers only, against the 47 crore or more workers in total workforce.
