Labour Ministry, MoSPI to track impact of new job creation scheme

Labour Secretary Vandana Gurnani urges collaboration with MoSPI to assess the impact of PM VBRY on job creation, as officials highlight PLFS reforms, data granularity and real-time insights

The Ministry of Labour and Employment has called for collaboration with the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) to assess the impact of the newly launched Pradhan Mantri Viksit Bharat Rojgar Yojana (PM VBRY) on job creation.

 

Speaking at a data users’ conference organised by MoSPI on Thursday on the recently launched periodic labour force survey (PLFS), Labour Secretary Vandana Gurnani said the ministry was committed to studying the impact of the new initiative, and whether it would lead to growth in jobs beyond current levels.

 

“We will have to do that as part of our implementation to see if the scheme is on track. And that is where I would like to partner with MoSPI to see how we can better understand the impact of this new initiative on job creation,” Gurnani said.

   

Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced PM VBRY on August 15 with an outlay of nearly Rs 1 trillion and a target of creating 35 million jobs in two years.

 

The benefits of the scheme will apply to jobs created between August 1, 2025, and July 31, 2027.

 

Gurnani also stressed the importance of triangulating PLFS data with administrative data sources such as the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) and the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC), which are available in real time, to provide a clearer picture of the labour market and help harness the demographic dividend.

 

Also speaking at the conference, MoSPI Secretary Sourabh Garg underlined the need for granularity, noting that India’s statistical system was undergoing deeper reforms.

 

“The focus is to become more granular. We are talking with states to see to what sub-state level we can go, while retaining robustness,” Garg said.

 

He also highlighted MoSPI’s efforts to reduce the time lag in report publication, introduce additional parameters and variables in PLFS, and make PLFS data more accessible in user-friendly formats.

 

Responding to concerns over the definition of ‘employment’—which covers working for one hour as employment—a MoSPI official clarified that the definition was in line with the 19th International Conference of Labour Statisticians (ICLS) resolution advocating the one-hour criterion.

 

“Data show that the average number of hours worked in a week in India is around 42, and only 0.2 per cent of workers work up to four hours a week. Hence, this share is negligible. Moreover, anyone who works even for an hour contributes to the economy, and that contribution can be measured,” the official said.

 

MoSPI recently began releasing monthly PLFS bulletins covering key labour market indicators such as unemployment and labour force participation rates from January 2025 for both rural and urban areas. The revamped design now covers 2.72 lakh households, up from 1 lakh earlier, and more than 10 lakh individuals. It also seeks to capture new labour market realities, including household incomes and the status of those not in employment, education or training (NEET).