New Delhi: Union Minister for Labour & Employment, Bhupender Yadav Tuesday said that the total employment in nine sectors rose by 10 lakh to 3.18 crore during January-March 2022, as compared to the previous year. Yadav released the report on the Fourth Round (January-March, 2022) of Quarterly Employment Survey (QES) as part of the All India Quarterly Establishment-based Employment Survey (AQEES).
During a press conference, S P Mukherjee, chairman of the expert group which brought out this QES, stated that the total employment was 3.08 crore on January 1, 2021, and 3.10 crore on January 1, 2022. Thus the number of employment in these nine sectors has increased by 10 lakh in that period.
The higher employment number also reflects a recovery in economic activities after states lifted restrictions that were imposed to curb the spread of coronavirus infections in the wake of the second COVID wave in April 2021. The estimated employment increased from 3.14 crore in the third quarter (October-December 2021) to 3.18 crore in the 4th quarter (January-March 2022), a labour ministry statement said.
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The AQEES has been taken up by the Labour Bureau to provide quarterly estimates about the employment and related variables of establishments in both organised and unorganised segments of nine selected sectors which account for a majority of the total employment in the non-farm establishments. AQEES has two components -- the 'Quarterly Employment Survey (QES)' and the 'Area Frame Establishment Survey (AFES)'.
The former relates to the establishments employing 10 or more workers whereas the latter relates to the establishments employing 9 or fewer workers. The QES as part of the AQEES was launched in April 2021 to capture important information in terms of employment and related variables in the organised sector of the economy.
In each quarter, information is collected from about 12,000 establishments. The first such report for the period April-June, 2021 was released in the month of September 2021. While releasing the 4th quarterly report, Yadav said that employment is showing an increasing trend in the selected sectors of the economy.
The total employment in these 9 selected sectors taken collectively was reported at 2.37 crore in the sixth Economic Census (2013-14). The report on the quarterly employment survey, being a demand-side survey along with the supply-side survey i.e. Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), will bridge the data gaps on employment in the country.
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The manufacturing sector accounts for the largest percentage (38.5 per cent) of the total number of workers, followed by education with 21.7 per cent, IT/BPO with 12 per cent and the health sector with 10.6 per cent. These four sectors together account for about 83 per cent of total workers. Looking at the size of the establishments (number of workers), an estimated 80 per cent of the establishments engaged 10 to 99 workers.
This figure increases to 88 per cent if we restrict ourselves to establishments with 10 or more workers. About 12 per cent of the establishments reported less than 10 workers. Only 1.4 per cent of the establishments reported at least 500 workers. Such large establishments were mostly in the IT/ BPO sector and in the health sector, the report showed.
Female workers' participation marginally increased from 31.6 per cent in the third quarter (October-December 2021) to 31.8 per cent in the 4th quarter (January-March 2022) report. However, it stated that female workers constituted about 52 per cent of the workforce in the health sector, and the corresponding percentages in education, financial services and IT/ BPO sector stood at 44 per cent, 41 per cent and 36 per cent respectively.
