Assam CM announces major cabinet changes

CURRENTLY, THE CENTRE PUBLISHES PLFS-BASED URBAN EMPLOYMENT DATA ON A QUARTERLY BASIS

- Zia Haq

NEW DELHI: Official data on job creation and unemployment will be available every month, likely from April next year, as the government has approved a proposal to increase the frequency of the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), the statistics ministry's quarterly assessment of the labour market, two officials have said.

On August 13, HT reported that the Rao Inderjit Singh-headed Union ministry of statistics and programme implementation had decided to conduct the PLFS more frequently than it currently does.

Besides PLFS-based urban jobs data on a three-monthly basis, the ministry currently also publishes an annual PLFS report that contains data on rural employment-unemployment scenarios.

Lack of frequently available official data on India's labour market tends to stymy policies and stock-taking of employment generation, analysts maintain. The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), a private-sector data firm, is currently the only provider of monthly unemployment data. The firm however uses a wholly different statistical model from the one used by the government to assess unemployment.