Centre yet to decide annual job survey cycle

To take a call if survey will cover Apr-Mar or July-June

The National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) plans an annual survey of households on employment from next year but has not decided the period of the study.

“The survey is being conducted,” Chief Statistician TCA Anant said. “We will release both annual and quarterly reports after the full year (2017-18) is over. We are yet to take a call whether it (the survey period) will be for April-March or July-June.”

NSSO will also release a quarterly survey for urban areas for a limited set of indicators. The survey comes amid a debate over demonetisation and the goods and services tax (GST) hurting employment, particularly in the informal sector.

The previous quinquennial surveys covered July-June. A change in this period would raise issues of comparability. “Earlier, we used to prepare a July-June report. Comparability issue will come up if we make an AprilMarch report. People will naturally ask why we didn’t take up the JulyJune cycle. So we might as well wait (and start from July 2017, to be released next year),” Anant said.

If the period is July-June for the new survey, called Periodic Labour Force Survey, it will make it comparable with the 2011-12 survey. The proposed survey will not have annual comparable data till 2019, when the second of the annual survey would be released. The past ones were quinquennial. However, the Employment and Unemployment Situation in India, 2011-12, alone was released, unusually, after a two-year cycle. The year 2009-10 had seen severe drought and so the government released the survey for that year as well as for 2011-12. Anant said the design in terms of the number of households, stratification, broad structure of the schedules — principal status, subsidiary status, current daily status, current weekly status, usual status — would be maintained with quinnennial surveys. The previous survey — 2011-12 — was spread over 7,469 villages and 5,268 urban blocks, covering 101,724 households (59,700 in rural areas and 42,024 in urban areas) and 456,999 persons (280,763 in rural areas and 176,236 in urban areas).

A large number of casual labourers in the country, explained former chief statistician Pronab Sen, makes it difficult for the NSSO to give straightforward surveys, like in advanced countries, saying what the employment or unemployment rates are.

Anant said there would be additional ancillary questions in the survey, besides the usual ones. Some additional questions were added in each survey in the past as well. For instance, the 2011-12 survey had a few questions for rural households to collect information related to a job guarantee scheme. The questions asked were if the household had MNREGA job cards, whether any member of the household had any bank, post office account.

Sen said questions are designed in such a way as to give comfort to respondents, depending on their social and economic background. For instance, a typical woman in a rural household does not consider her work in animal husbandry as part of the economic activity. This should be understood while asking these questions, Sen added.

COMPARABILITY ISSUE WILL COME UP IF WE MAKE AN APRIL-MARCH REPORT. PEOPLE WILL NATURALLY ASK WHY WE DIDN’T TAKE UP THE JULY-JUNE CYCLE. SO WE MIGHT AS WELL WAIT (AND START FROM JULY 2017)” TCA ANANT Chief statistician