MoSPI to start annual unemployment, health surveys from January

MoSPI to start new survey exercise from Jan

The government will begin conducting a series of year-long surveys starting this month, covering areas such as health, telecom, information and communication technology (ICT) skills, and employment, the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation announced on January 2.

In addition to these surveys, the ministry will also collect data on unincorporated sector enterprises starting in January, aligning these surveys with the calendar year. This marks a shift from previous timeframes, with the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) transitioning from a July-June cycle to a calendar-year model. Similarly, the Annual Survey of Unincorporated Sector Enterprises (ASUSE), which previously ran from October to September, will now align with the calendar year.

The government is also revising the methodology for conducting these surveys to generate more granular insights, including district-level statistics. The sample design for these surveys has been updated to include provisions for generating district-level estimates, monthly estimates of key labour force indicators at the national level, quarterly estimates for PLFS in rural areas, and quarterly estimates for ASUSE, along with annual estimates.

As part of these changes, the government plans to release monthly unemployment data for both rural and urban areas, an addition to the existing monthly releases of industrial production, consumer inflation, and social security scheme enrollments.

Furthermore, the government is planning to launch a survey in April to track household education expenditures, the first of its kind since the 2017-18 survey.