Non-farm jobs in nine key sectors to expand in April-June, shows survey

The survey of 10,900 establishments showed that these sectors, including manufacturing, technology, financial services and trade, employed an estimated 30.8 million people at the end of June 30, up 29% from 23.7 million at the end of March 2014, when a was assessed. made last.

The Labor Ministry survey shows that the software and business process outsourcing (BPO) sector registered the fastest growth of 152% during the period. Health sector jobs grew by 77%, the second fastest.

The survey found that jobs in the manufacturing sector grew only 22 per cent during this period, while the education sector grew by 39 per cent, the transport sector 68 per cent, the construction sector 42 per cent and the financial services 48 per cent.

“The comparison of QES and Economic Census is not a perfect one… Although some sectors have shown impressive numbers, we must realize that these are the sectors which have been hit by the huge demand for technology and its adoption after the outbreak of the pandemic. Is.” KR Shyam Sundar, labor economist and professor at XLRI, Jamshedpur, said.

Meanwhile, employment in business declined by 25% and in the hotel and restaurant sector by 13%.

Employment, Labor and Employment Minister Bhupendra Yadav said that the quarterly employment survey will be a regular exercise.

Releasing the Quarterly Employment Survey (QES), Yadav said the workforce in these sectors was estimated at 23.7 million in the Sixth Economic Census of 2013-14, but there is no official data after that.

Of the total workforce in nine sectors, 40.6% were employed in manufacturing, 21.8% in education, 8.4% in healthcare, 6.7% in information technology and BPO sector, 6.6% in business, 5.7% in financial services, 4.3% in transportation . , 2.9% in housing and restaurants and 2.4% in construction.

Labor Secretary Sunil Barthwal said QES is the beginning of a regular quarterly job creation exercise that will help in policy making and bridge the gap in official contemporary jobs figures.

SP Mukherjee, who heads the QES survey design committee, said the labor bureau has taken the sixth economic census data as its basis as the seventh economic census data is yet to be made public.

While an economic census gives actual national figures, QES is a survey, and its data is an estimate, explained Mukherjee, a veteran labor economist and statistician.

Mukherjee, however, said that the survey obtained reliable data from establishments, and favored a comparison of the 2013-14 Economic Census with the previous round of QES, where sampling and data exercise was limited.

The previous QES began after the Lehman crisis in 2008-09 to capture the impact of the economic crisis on export sectors. It was closed by the government in 2017-18.

However, the survey did not conduct a comparative study of the impact of the pandemic on non-farm employment, except to say that employment declined in 27% of the establishments surveyed by it during this period.

“On the bright side of the employment scenario, it may be noted that 81% of workers got full wages during the lockdown period (25 March-30 June 2020), 16% got less wages, and only 3% got any wages. been denied. . In the health and financial services sector, however, more than 90% of workers received full wages,” the survey said.

The survey noted that male workers in these key sectors constitute 70.7% of the total workforce, reflecting low female participation in the workforce.

“The overall participation of women workers was 29%, which is slightly less than the 31% reported during the sixth EC (Economic Survey),” the survey said.