To know the true picture of employment, one must consider the situation of the unorganized sector

- Digital transformation in the Corona era has blurred the picture of the job market

A report on the new Quarterly Employment Survey (QES) has recently been released by the Labor Bureau under the Union Ministry of Labor and Employment. The survey compares the sixth economic census of 2015-16, showing employment in the manufacturing, construction, trade, transport, education, health, hospitality, IT and financial services sectors in urban parts of the country. By comparison, employment in the first quarter of the current financial year is expected to grow by 7.5 per cent. In the sixth economic census of 2016-17, the employment generation stood at 4.5 crore, while in the April-June period of the current financial year, the figure stood at 3.06 crore.

QES currently focuses on organized sector companies with more than 10 employees. The survey also plans to cover smaller units over time to cover a clearer picture of employment. The government is trying to get clear figures on employment. In developed countries like the US, employment figures are available on a weekly basis, while some other countries are publishing employment and unemployment figures every month.

This first QES report is prepared during the second wave of the Corona. Due to the corona, most of the surveys were conducted by telephone or indirectly. The information of the institutes in which the survey was conducted was obtained from the Economic Census of 2016-17. It is true that an economic census has been conducted in 2020 but it is yet to be made public. The economic survey conducted in 2016-17 covered all sectors while the QES highlighted the employment situation in the above nine main sectors.

There is no point in comparing QES with many of the industrial units that were covered in the survey in 2016-17, either because of their closure or because of the drastic changes in their working methods. In order to prove the credibility of QES, it has to be compared with the last survey conducted in 2020, so that the picture of increase in employment or decrease can be seen. It would have been more credible to compare QES with the 2016-17 report and the current state of the economy and how it was affected by the Corona epidemic.

However, the employment situation in the country was good even during the second wave of Corona in the first quarter of the current financial year, the QES report said. Thus, in terms of employment, this report may be reassuring for the country's policy makers. The second wave of Corona was expected to increase the number of unemployed people applying lockdown in many states of the country, but this report is disproving the assumptions and is claiming to have created 20 million new jobs.

The massive digital transformation that is now being witnessed by Corona after globalization, automation has changed the way the job market works, especially in the field of information technology. While the pro-digitization shift in the Corona era has led to an increase in the need for digitally savvy and trained employees, IT service companies are striving to maintain their talent pool and hire new recruits. The number of technology jobs from the non-IT sector increased by more than 50 per cent in March-May 2018 compared to March-May 2012, according to another recent report. Thus it is currently difficult to get a true picture of employment after the Kora period.

While most of the institutions surveyed have small units, the survey claims that only one in five employees were not paid full wages between March 9 and June 30, 2020, as this is the period when the entire country was under lockdown due to the first wave of Corona. The fact that only 18 per cent of the workers received reduced wages and 4 per cent did not get paid is not acceptable. It cannot be assumed that only 3% of the construction workers were given reduced wages.

On the other hand, a survey conducted by organizations like the Center for Monitoring Indian Economy has found that corona has had a serious impact on the job market. A large number of urban workers lost their jobs due to the corona. Out of 206 million jobs in 2016-2017, only 2.5 million jobs survived during the lockdown. However, by July 2020, the situation had rapidly changed and the number of job losses had reached 1.11 crore.

The country has a large number of jobs in the organized sector as well as in the unorganized sector. If the situation of the unorganized sector is taken into account in the period of lockdown, the true picture of employment in the country may come to the fore. The initiative taken by the government to paint a picture of employment is welcome but it is also essential that a pragmatic approach be adopted in the method of conducting surveys.