Labour Ministry Thrashes 'Unscientific' Surveys By Private Entities On Unemployment, Urges Caution In Using Their Results

Union Labour Ministry on Wednesday (4 January) rebutted the survey-based news on unemployment rate, saying that various private organisations conduct surveys based on their own methodologies which are generally neither scientific nor based on internationally accepted norms.

The ministry said that news related to high unemployment rate during December 2022 has been published in some sections of the media based on a survey conducted by a private company.

The rebuttal comes days after the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), a private economic think-tank and business information company, stated that the unemployment rate in the country increased to 8.3 per cent in December, the highest in 2022. 

The unemployment rate during November was 8 per cent, while in September, it was the lowest at 6.43 per cent and was the second highest during the year at 8.28 per cent in August, according to CMIE data. 

While the urban unemployment rate was at 10 per cent during the last month of 2022, rural joblessness stood at 7.5 per cent during December, as per the CMIE data. 

Without naming any publication in its rebuttal, the ministry said that the methodology used by such entities "usually have a bias towards over-reporting unemployment or under-reporting employment due to their own sampling procedure and definitions used for collection of data on employment/unemployment".

The ministry further stated that the official data on 'Employment - Unemployment' is released by the Ministry of Statistical and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) based on the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), and the latest annual PLFS report is available for the survey period July 2020 to June 2021 for estimates at all India level. 

The quarterly PLFS report is also released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation for Urban areas. The quarterly reports are available till July-September 2022, it said.

"As per the available PLFS report, the worker population ratio i.e. employment for person aged 15 years and above was at the level of 44.5 per cent during July-September 2022 compared to 43.4 per cent during the same quarter in 2019," the ministry said.

"The unemployment rate during July-September, 2022 stood at the level of 7.2 per cent compared to 8.3 per cent in July-September 2019," it added.

"Thus, the data of PLFS indicates that the employment market has not only recovered the jolt of Covid-19 pandemic, but also is at levels higher than the pre-pandemic level," the ministry said.