The Big Picture - Decoding Employment Data

India’s unemployment rate stood at 6.1% in FY18, official data showed, highlighting the challenge that confronts the Narendra Modi-led government. The data isn’t comparable with that of past years, the government contended, in effect seeking to refute previous leaked reports that said they showed the unemployment rate was at a 45-year high. The Periodic Labour Force Survey of the National Sample Survey Office released on Friday showed the unemployment rate in the country in FY18 was at 5.3% in rural India and 7.8% in urban India, resulting in overall unemployment rate of 6.1%. The joblessness among males on all India basis was 6.2 per cent, while it was 5.7 per cent in case of females. Highlighting the difference between the PLFS and the earlier surveys conducted every five years, the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation said the older assessments used paper forms to collect information on different aspects of the labour force. In the PLFS, information has been collected from all members of sample households using the computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) method with inbuilt validation rules through tablets. On this edition of the big picture we will decode the employment data and the way forward.

Guest - Ajay Dua, Former Secretary, Ministry of Commerce,
Shishir Sinha, Sr. Dy. Editor, Hindu Business Line,
Pravin Srivastava, Secretary, MoSPI,

Anchor - Frank Rausan Pereira