Employment and Unemployment, July 2004 - June 2005

NSS 61st Round

One of the important surveys conducted regularly by the nsso is the quinquennial survey on employment-unemployment. The first such survey was done during september 1972 - october 1973 corresponding to the 27th round of nsso.

The seventh such all-india survey on the situation of employment and unemployment in India was carried out as a part of the 61st round of the national sample survey organisation (nsso) during the period july 2004 - june 2005. In this survey, a nation-wide enquiry was conducted to provide estimates on various characteristics pertaining to employment and unemployment in India and some characteristics associated with them at the national and state levels. Information on various facets of employment and unemployment in India was collected through a schedule of enquiry (schedule 10).

In this survey, apart from the information usually collected in the quinquennial rounds, information on some new items has been collected. This has been done following the suggestions made by the Working Group set up to finalise the survey methodology and schedules of enquiry of the 61st round. Some of the more important among them, which have enlarged the scope of the survey are stated below:

a) Certain information on informal employment had been collected from all usual status workers with respect to their principal work activity and/or their subsidiary activity, engaged in non-agricultural sector as well as in the agricultural sector excluding only growing of crops, market gardening, horticulture and growing of crops combined with farming of animals. Indeed, according to NIC-98, information on informal employment had been collected from usual status workers engaged in industry groups 012, 014, 015 and divisions 10 to 99.

b) In the employment and unemployment surveys, data on wages had so far been collected for the employees according to the current daily status. In the 61st round survey, attempt had been made to assess the quality of self-employment in terms of the earnings through certain probing questions. From the self-employed persons according to the usual status, information on two items viz. ‘whether earning from self-employment was remunerative’ and ‘what amount per month was considered remunerative’ was collected in terms of codes.

c) Information on vocational training receiving/received by the persons of age 15 to 29 years had been collected. Further, among those who had received or were receiving ‘formal vocational training’, information on the ‘source from where degree/diploma/certificate received/ to be received’, ‘duration of training’ and ‘field of training’ had been collected.

d) Information on ‘voluntary participation without remuneration in production of goods and services’ had been collected for those members of the household who were not workers, considering both principal and subsidiary status, as per existing production boundary followed by NSSO.

e) Instead of collecting information on skill, information on ‘seeking or available or suitable for the type of occupation’ had been collected for the persons of age below 75 years who were not employed in the usual principal status.

f) Information on ‘period of seeking/availability for work during the last 365 days’ had been collected for all the persons of age 5 years and above. In the earlier quinquennial rounds, this information was collected only for those who were unemployed in the usual principal status.

It may be noted that in case more than one subsidiary economic activity was pursued during the reference period, the details of maximum two usual subsidiary economic activities were recorded in the 55th round survey depending upon the relatively longer time criteria. In this round, only one usual subsidiary economic activity pursued for relatively more time was recorded and a person was considered to have performed subsidiary economic activity if the activity was performed at least for 30 days in the reference year.

Scope :
As in the past, in the present survey too, NSSO collected data on some characteristics, based on which, estimates of employment and unemployment, measured in terms of 3 basic approaches viz. usual status, current weekly status and current daily status could be obtained. The reference period for these approaches differs - it being 365 days preceding the date of survey for ‘usual status’, 7 days preceding the date of survey for ‘current weekly status’ and each day of the 7 days preceding the date of survey for ‘current daily status’.

Data were collected on the activity status of all persons, i.e. for workers, for those seeking or available for work and also for those remaining out of labour force. A worker could be self-employed or enjoy regular salary/wages or be employed on casual wage basis. Data on this aspect, along with the industry of work of the worker and his/her occupation, were collected during this survey. In order to reveal the multi-dimensional features of the employment-unemployment situation in India, information on several correlates pertaining to it were also gathered. In addition, probing questions were put to the workers in order to understand the extent of underutilization of the their labour time and to acquire more specific information in this regard. An effort was also made to collect information on the qualitative aspects of employment like changes in activity status, occupation /industry, availability of trade unions/associations, nature of employment (permanent/temporary), etc. Data were also collected from the usual status workers, engaged in industry groups 012, 014, 015 and divisions 10 to 99 of NIC-98, with respect to some particulars of the enterprise in which they were engaged viz. location of work place, type of enterprises, number of workers in the enterprise etc. and some particulars on the condition of employment like type of job contract, eligibility for paid leave, availability of social security benefits etc.. Data were also collected to get some idea about earning from self-employment. Information on vocational training receiving/received by the persons of age 15 to 29 years was also collected in the 61st round survey.

Geographical coverage:
The survey covered the whole of the Indian Union except (i) Leh (Ladakh) and Kargil districts of Jammu & Kashmir, (ii) interior villages of Nagaland situated beyond 5 kilometres of the bus route and (iii) villages in Andaman and Nicobar Islands which remained inaccessible throughout the year.

Sub-round:
The fieldwork of the 61st round of NSSO started from 1st July, 2004 and continued till 30th June, 2005. As usual, the survey period of this round was divided into four sub-rounds, each with a duration of three months, the 1st sub-round period ranging from July to September 2004, the 2nd sub-round period from October to December 2004 and so on. An equal number of sample villages/blocks (FSUs) were allotted for survey in each of these four sub-rounds. The survey used the interview method of data collection from a sample of randomly selected households.