Employment in nine core non-farming sectors sees upswing: Survey

The employment scenario in nine core non-farming sectors witnessed an upswing in January-March 2022 quarter, riding on creation of more job opportunities in the IT/BPO sector though the manufacturing sector saw a substantial decline in jobs.

The fourth round of Quarterly Employment Survey (QES) for January-March 22, released by Labour Minister Bhupender Yadav on Tuesday, showed that around 3.18 crore people are are estimated to be working in the nine sectors as against 3.14 crore recorded during the third round of the survey (October-December 2021).

The vacancies have come down to 1.50 lakh from 1.85 lakh in the third round and 4.32 lakh reported during July-September 2021. The QES-1 (Aril-June 2021) had reported 1.87 lakh vacancies.

When it comes to women's participation in the workforce, there was a "marginal" improvement from 31.6 per cent reported in QES 3 to 31.8 per cent in the latest survey. In the first round, 29.3 per cent women were reported to have been working in these sectors.

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According to the Economic Census of 2013-14, the latest available, 2.37 crore people were employed in nine core non-farming sectors -- manufacturing, construction, trade, transport, education, health, accommodation and restaurants, IT/BPOs and financial services. The women participation in the workforce was 31 per cent.

The QES, an establishment-based survey, is aimed to provide employment estimates for a sizable segment of the non-farm economy covering nine sectors and the first round was held in April-June 2021. The nine sectors chosen for the survey account for around 85 per cent of the total employment in establishments with ten or more workers.

The manufacturing sector continued to account for the highest estimated employment but the number of workers in the sector dipped to 1,22,54,742 (1.22 crore), down by 1.44 lakh jobs compared to second QES when 1,23,99,507 (1.24 crore) jobs were reported.

However, this decline was offset by the increase in jobs in the IT/BPO sector which witnessed a jump of 3.74 lakh -- from 34,56,849 (34.56 lakh) jobs in QES 3 to 38,31,452 (38.31 lakh).

The health sector also added 93,701 jobs during the three months taking the number of workers to 33,79,735 (33.79 lakh) from 32,86,034 (32.86 lakh). This is a reverse trend when QES 3 had seen a decline compared to QES 2 (July-September 2021).

The education sector accounted for 69.04 lakh workers as against 69.26 lakh while the trade sector accounted for 16.98 lakh (16.81 lakh) and construction 6.10 lakh (6.19 lakh).

When it comes to vacancies, the survey said 3.01 per cent establishments reported vacancies -- 46.21 per cent were due to resignations, 10.67 per cent due to retirement and 43.11 per cent due to other reasons.

Of the 1.50 lakh estimated vacancies, the health sector topped the list with 65,958 followed by manufacturing 42,349 and education 25,875. Vacancies reported in construction (1,153), trade (10,444), transport (1,116), hospitality (1,993), IT/BPOs (1,319) and financial services (565) were less than 10,000.

According to the survey, nearly 92 per cent of the total 5.31 lakh establishments have been estimated to work with less than 100 workers, though 30.9 per cent of the IT/BPO establishments worked with at least 100 workers, including about 13 per cent engaging 500 or more workers.

In the health sector, 18.6 per cent of the establishments had 100 or more workers while in the transport sector, 14 per cent of the establishments were operating with 100 or more workers.

Regular workers constituted 86.4 per cent of the estimated workforce in the nine selected sectors, with only 2.3 per cent being casual workers. However, in the Construction sector, 19 per cent of the workers were contractual and 5.7 per cent were casual workers, the survey said.