Report on Fourth Round (January-March, 2022) of Quarterly Employment Survey (QES) released

Shri Bhupender Yadav, Union Minister for Labour & Employment, released report on Fourth Round (January-March, 2022) of Quarterly Employment Survey (QES) part of All India Quarterly Establishment based Employment Survey (AQEES).

The AQEES has been taken up by the Labour Bureau to provide quarterly estimates about the employment and related variables of establishments in both organized and unorganized segments of nine selected sectors which account for a majority of the total employment in the non-farm establishments. The nine selected sectors are Manufacturing, Construction, Trade, Transport, Education, Health, Accommodation& Restaurant, IT / BPO and Financial Services.

All India Quarterly Establishment based Employment Survey (AQEES)” has two components – first, the “Quarterly Employment Survey (QES)”and the second “Area Frame Establishment Survey (AFES)”. The former relates to the establishments employing 10 or more workers whereas the later relates to the establishments employing 9 or less workers.

The QES as a part of the AQEES was launched in April, 2021 to capture important information in terms of employment & related variables in the organized sector of the economy. In each quarter information is being 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, Union Minister said that the employment is showing an increasing trend in the selected sectors of the economy. The estimated employment has increased from 3.14 crore of the third quarter (September-December, 2021) to 3.18 crore of 4th Quarter (January-March, 2022). It is important to mention here that the total employment in these 9 selected sectors taken collectively was reported as 2.37 crore in the sixth Economic Census (2013-14).

The Report on 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.

Key highlights of the 4th Quarterly Employment Survey Report are as follows:

• An estimated total of 3.18 crore workers was engaged in 5.31 lakh establishments during the 4th round, compared to a total of 3.14 crores in the third quarter.

• Manufacturing sector accounts for the largest percentage (38.5%) of the total number of workers, followed by Education sector with 21.7%, IT/BPO sector with 12% and Health sector 10.6%.
• Looking at the size of the establishments (number of workers), an estimated 80% of the establishments engaged 10 to 99 workers. This figure increases to 88 % if we restrict ourselves to establishments with 10 or more workers. About 12 % of the establishments reported less than 10 workers.

• Only 1.4 % of the establishments reported at least 500 workers. Such large establishments were mostly in the IT/ BPO sector and in the Health sector.
• Female workers participation reported marginally increase from 31.6% in the third quarter to 31.8% in the 4th quarter report. However, female workers constituted about 52 % of the workforce in the Health sector, the corresponding percentages in Education, Financial Services and IT/ BPO sector stood at 44%, 41% and 36% respectively. It is noteworthy that in Financial Services, females far outnumber males among self-employed persons.