NEW DELHI: The labour ministry has decided to put the eighth Quarterly Employment Survey (QES) on hold as officials have been deployed in the field to collect and collate data from the unorganized sector.
The QES gives details on the number of jobs created in eight sectors which account for around 80 per cent of India’s total organized workforce.
“Another reason for putting the QES report on hold is that it gives the government time to add the payroll data to it,” a ministry official said, and added that the payroll data had higher projections for the number of jobs created in the organized sector. The payroll data projects that 35 lakh jobs were added in the formal sector between September last year and March 2018. This is in stark contrast to the seventh QES report—for April to September 2107—which showed only 2 lakh jobs being created.
The move is seen as contradictory, as initially, the ministry had planned to release separate surveys for the organized and unorganized sectors. The latest QES report was due in May and was to give details about jobs for the October-December 2017 period. The payroll data is the first estimate based on data from the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation, Employees State Insurance Corporation, and Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority.