Of the total 29 major industry groups covered in the Annual Survey of Industries (ASI), 'manufacture of computer, electronic and optical products' has seen the highest growth in the number of people engaged between the pre-pandemic period (2019-20) and 2022-23. A Business Standard analysis of the latest ASI results has taken into consideration only industry groups having more than 1,000 operating factories. This industry group, which includes manufacture of electronic components, computer equipment, consumer electronics and optical instruments, among others, saw the total number of people engaged rise nearly 50 per cent to 425,000 from 283,000.

The number of people averse to the surveys by the National Statistical Office (NSO) has more than doubled over the last five years between the 75th National Sample Survey (NSS) round (July 2017- June 2018) and the 79th NSS round (July 2022-June 2023), the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation MoSPI) said on Friday in a conference organised to discuss the issue of 'non- responsiveness' to its sample surveys. The ministry said that nearly 6.9 per cent people in urban areas surveyed by the NSO for the 79th NSS round did not participate in the exercise, while the number of people in rural India that refused to participate in these surveys stood at 3.9 per cent.

At a time when the government is nudging the private sector to ramp up its capital expenditure (capex), the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) is poised to kick-start the first-of-its-kind annual survey on the status of private sector capex from next month. "The inaugural edition of the annual exercise will start in October and will be completed by December. "The results will be made public by February next year," said Geeta Singh Rathore, director general, National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), at a data users' conference on Thursday.

With the dissolution of former chief statistician Pronab Sen-led Standing Committee on Statistics (SCoS) by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), the National Statistical Commission (NSC) has regained prominence as the primary statistical body to address issues regarding results, methodology and questionnaire, among others. A MoSPI official in an email informed the 16-member SCoS about the decision to dissolve it, citing that its work was "overlapping" with that of the Steering Committee for National Sample Surveys (NSS), which was set up in June this year.

Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) will migrate to a new information technology (IT) system within the next three months, Union labour minister Mansukh Mandaviya said on Wednesday. In July last year, a clutch of officers at the retirement fund body had written a letter to the Central government complaining about archaic and "collapsing" software systems. Subscribers too were facing problems due to it.

Employment in urban areas in the first quarter of 2024-25 (FY25) improved over the previous one. The unemployment rate in April-June (Q1) declined to 6.6 per cent from a four-quarter high of 6.7 per cent in January-March FY24 owing to the fall in the male unemployment rate, according to the quarterly Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) data, released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) on Friday.

As of March 2023, the share of accounts belonging to women stood at 36.4 per cent (917.7 million) of the total 2.52 billion individual accounts.

The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (Mospi) has started preparations for the eighth Economic Census (EC), which is expected to be formally launched next year, sources told Business Standard, even as the results of the seventh edition are yet to be made public. "Centre has asked states and Union Territories (UTs) to submit requirements for funds and manpower in a bid to start work on the eighth EC. "The states and UTs are required to set up a dedicated unit to conduct the exercise.

Recognising job creation for the youth as the foremost challenge for the economy, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday announced a comprehensive Prime Minister's package to facilitate the employment and skilling of 41 million youth with a central outlay of Rs 2 trillion over the next five-year period. The package will consist of five schemes and initiatives - three focused on jobs and two on skilling.

'This year overall hiring has seen a slight improvement as compared to the dip seen during the last financial year.'

Updated new base years for national accounts and other macro-indicators are expected to come into effect from January-February 2026, coinciding with the first and second advance estimates of national income for FY26, senior official sources aware of the development told Business Standard. "The statistics ministry set up the Advisory Committee on National Accounts Statistics (ACNAS) earlier this week. "It will advise on the base year for GDP (gross domestic product) and its alignment with other macro-indicators.

A company spokesperson told Business Standard that Amazon was committed to the safety and well-being of its employees. "Disciplinary proceedings have been initiated against the people involved in the incident. "The process is underway and we are looking at a potential case of 'separation' for the people involved within the next week or two," the spokesperson added.

Unincorporated enterprises in the manufacturing sector lost nearly 1.8 million establishments and shed 5.4 million jobs between July 2015-June 2016 and October 2022-September 2023, an analysis of the fact sheet on 'Annual Survey of Unincorporated Sector Enterprises (ASUSE)' and the comparable 73rd round survey in 2015-16 by the National Statistical Office (NSO) showed. An estimated 17.82 million unincorporated enterprises operated in the manufacturing sector in October 2022-September 2023, nearly 9.3 per cent down from 19.7 million unincorporated enterprises in July 2015- June 2016.

The number of fresh formal jobs generated in a month increased to a seven-month high in April, signalling a recovery in the formal labour market in the country, according to the latest monthly payroll data released by the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) on Thursday. In April, the number of new monthly subscribers under the Employees' Provident Fund (EPF) sequentially increased by 18.77 per cent to 887,438 from 747,146 in March.

'Efforts are on to make the data readily available so that it proves useful for policymakers.'

After adding 11.7 million workers in the October 2022-September 2023 period from the pandemic lows in April 2021-March 2022, total workers employed in the vast informal sector in India - at 109.6 million - still remains below the pre-pandemic period.

>Bihar (18 days) has the most number of heatwave days in 2023, followed by Andhra Pradesh (15 days), Odisha (15 days), Jharkhand (13 days), West Bengal (8 days) and Tamil Nadu (6 days).

The share of women employed in regular salaried jobs in urban India hit a fresh low in the January-March quarter (Q4) of 2023-24 (FY24). In the same period, the share of women engaged in self-employment went up. An analysis of the latest quarterly Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) data showed the share of women in regular wage work among all employed women stood at 52.3 per cent in Q4FY24, down from 53 per cent in the previous quarter.

The share of the Hindu population declined by 7.8% to 78.06%.
In contrast, the share of the Muslim and Christian populations increased by 43.15% to 14.09%, and by 5.4% to 2.36%.

The Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) is considering raising the monthly minimum wage ceiling from Rs 15,000 now to improve the coverage and bring millions of informal workers under its purview. The last increase in the minimum wage ceiling was in 2014 to Rs 15,000 from Rs 6,500.