Losing Count

Surveys say there are not enough jobs; Union government says the numbers are wrong

- Soumik Dey

THE LUCKNOW AIRPORT is still a maze for Abdul Gaffar. The migrant worker from Kanpur needs to change flights twice to reach his workplace in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. This time, he came home after one and a half years and stayed over for three months. He likes it here. Then why is he going back? “Life is easier while working here,” says Gaffar. “But there are hardly any jobs.”

That is exactly why the government is hesitant about revealing the results of a survey report of the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO). The report of the Periodic Labour Force Surveys (PLFS) conducted between April 2017 and March 2018 has been delayed for almost a year now. The survey records response on employment from homes, instead of organisations. Leaked by a newspaper, the survey showed that the labour participation rate fell to an all-time low of 49.8 per cent. It means that more than half of India’s working population was not engaged in any productive employment.

But the government said that the data was not indicative and was yet to be finalised. A day before the data was leaked, Pravin Srivastava, chief statistician of India and secretary at the ministry of statistics and programme implementation, told the media that the job survey data on the informal sector would be readied and released by early March. “It is a data that is still under some minor adjustments and corrections. We will finalise the data after receiving those corrections,” he said.

The leaked data also indicated that the unemployment rate has risen to 6.1 per cent, a 45-year high, in 2017-18. “There is nothing wrong with this data,” said agriculture economist J.V. Meenakshi, professor at Delhi School of Economics. She said the household surveys were a clear indication that demonetisation and GST had added to the jobs loss. “The rate of urban job loss is much higher than the rural rate,” she said.