SHASWATA ACHARYYA

সাঁইথিয়া স্টেট জেনারেল হাসপাতাল কর্তৃপক্ষ আজ PWD- এর কাছ থেকে নবনির্মিত ভবনটি আনুষ্ঠানিকভাবে গ্রহণ করলেন। তার সাক্ষী থাকলাম আমারা।

According to the latest Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), India's unemployment rate revealed a big decline from 6.1% in 2018 to 3.2% in 2023. The numbers, as expected, have created a storm. PLFS is an apt representation of employment/unemployment estimates in India. Here are some observations: 1. The bulge in self employment at more than 50% and within that the share of family members indicates the rapid formalisation of credit through Govt schemes like PMMY and PMSVANidhi for the informal labour force at the bottom of pyramid. Thus family enterprises are becoming larger over time by getting linked with the formal banking system. Interestingly, the share of self employment has always been more than 50% in India’s employment scenario since the 1980’s and is not a new phenomenon as is being made out to be. 2. Youth unemployment, defined as those between 15-29 at 10% is a statistical artefact, as most of the people who will join labour force currently, finish studies only by the age of 24. In fact the total number of students enrolled, as per MHRD, is as much as 41 Million and it is natural to believe that a large part of them are not available in labour force, thus imparting an upward bias in unemployment rate between 15-29. In fact, if we reestimate unemployment rates for 30+ labour force, the unemployment rate declines significantly. 3. The PLFS survey is much better than CMIE as it addresses the issue of stratified sampling in a much coherent manner. The PLFS survey was started from 2017 to overcome the issues with earlier EUS-NSSO employment survey, that was based on consumption spending and hence had a downward bias in unemployment estimates. The CMIE survey has a greater concentration around large numbers as it does not possibly consider the movements in Indian labour market from lower strata to upper strata. Also, heuristic exercise like plotting the MGNREGA enrolment and CMIE rural unemployment shows both of them moving in the same direction, while in reality it would have been opposite! 4. Going forward, the PLFS survey must be the go to survey for all researchers with minor tweaks in youth unemployment estimates and more integration of formal job creation data with PLFS. The PLFS survey should be used to deconstruct changing India’s labour market and not to establish mere rhetorics.