Journalism of Courage
Quarterly labour market surveys will help policymakers,as long as they are reliable.
THERE is a plan in the pipeline for the ministries of labour and statistics to join hands to produce a quarterly,pan-India survey of the labour market. This would hopefully generate reliable employment and wage statistics at regular intervals. Currently,the two sources of dependable labour market data are the National Sample Survey Organisation NSSO and the Labour Bureau. The NSSO conducts its survey once every five years,and also releases a quick thin sample survey annually though this is less reliable. The Labour Bureau has been conducting a quarterly survey of eight largely export-sensitive sectors ever since the financial crisis of 2008-09.
In India,due to the large informal sector,and the high proportion of self-employed individuals and small-scale production,collecting accurate data is challenging. Regardless,this must be done. The damage that can be caused by unreliable data,that then has to be frequently updated is evident. Arguably,the reason why inflation is so entrenched in the economy is because the RBI had based its earlier policy on a growth rate of 8.4 per cent for 2010-11,which was later updated to 9.3 per cent. Crucially,with nearly 13 million young people added to the labour force each year,these are numbers the political class should want to watch.
