Govt sets up task force to look into jobs data discrepancies

The government attaches the highest priority to job creation, says Arvind Panagariya

The government has set up a task force headed by Niti Aayog Vice-Chairman Arvind Panagariya to recommend ways to deal with employment data discrepancies and come up with reliable solutions to promote job creation.
 
“A task force has been created under the chairmanship of the vice-chairman, NITI Aayog  Arvind Panagariya with Labour Secretary M Sathiyavathy, Secretary Statistics  T C A Anant, Prof Pulak Ghosh of NITI Aayog and Manish Sabharwal (member RBI Board) as members,” the Prime Ministers’ Office said in a statement. The Prime Minister has directed that this task be expedited so that policies on employment can be formulated with a proper appreciation of impacts, based on credible data, the statement added.

 
“The government attaches the highest priority to job creation. India suffers from a lack of reliable, timely data on employment which has made it difficult for policymakers and independent observers to assess the extent of employment generation at different points of time. Some data is collected and published by certain agencies including the Labour Bureau, but the coverage is very small,” it said.
 

It was noted that the Labour Bureau data covered only a few sectors and the methodology was not based on updated panel of survey respondents.
 
The net result has been that both policy making and analysis are conducted in a data vacuum.