Govt to release withheld Periodic Labour Force Survey for 2017-18

This would be the first comprehensive report on the country’s employment situation in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government and it captures the impact of demonetisation on the economy.

Data from the NSSO’s Periodic Labour Force Survey 2017-18, reviewed by The Indian Express, had also shown India’s male workforce was shrinking, with 28.6 crore employed males.

This has been the first instance of a drop in the male workforce that steadily swelled from 21.9 crore in 1993-94 to 30.4 crore in 2011-12 when the last NSSO survey was conducted.

The withholding of the jobs report had come to the forefront in January when the acting chairman of National Statistical Commission (NSC), P C Mohanan, a career statistician, and J V Meenakshi, Professor at the Delhi School of Economics, resigned from NSC protesting against the withholding of the NSSO’s first Annual Survey on Employment and Unemployment for 2017-18.

In February, Niti Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar, at a press conference had said the quarterly employment data sets for the July-December 2018 period (two quarters) are still being processed and the government would release the employment survey report by March “after collating quarter-on-quarter data”.

Mohanan, however, had said that the survey was the final report since NSC had approved it.

Subsequently, the Standing Committee on Labour Force Statistics (SCLFS) had met in March in Kolkata wherein a broad consensus had emerged for release of the jobs report and it was decided that a sub-group will be formed to look into the methodological details of the survey.

‘Restructuring to strengthen national statistical system’

New Delhi: The government, in a release issued on Thursday, said the internal restructuring of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) is to “strengthen the national statistical system while maintaining its autonomy”.

The various divisions in MoSPI will continue to perform their functions as before.

It also stated that the role and status of NSC will be unaltered and it will continue to provide “strategic direction and leadership” to the national statistical system in MoSPI, line ministries and state governments.

In an order dated May 23, the government had cleared merger of CSO and NSSO into a single body, National Statistical Office (NSO), while the earlier 2005 resolution had proposed NSO with two wings, CSO and NSSO, which would act according to the policies laid down by NSC. —ENS