National Sample Survey 2009-2010 (66th round) - Schedule 10 - Employment and Unemployment

The 66th round (July 2009-June 2010) of NSS is earmarked for survey on "Household Consumer Expenditure" and "Employment and Unemployment". The survey on "household consumer expenditure" and "employment and unemployment" is the eighth quinquennial survey in the series, the last one being conducted in the 61st round (2004-2005) of NSS.

The survey on employment and unemployment is the prime source of statistical indicators and estimates of various parameters of labour force and activity participation of the population. The first quinquennial survey on employment - unemployment, carried out by the NSSO in the 27th round (September 1972 - October 1973), made a marked departure from the earlier employment surveys of NSSO in procedure and content. The concepts and procedures followed in this survey were primarily based on the recommendations of the 'Expert Committee on Unemployment Estimates' (1970). Since then, the six successive quinquennial surveys conducted in the 32nd, 38th, 43rd, 50th, 55th and 61st rounds have, more or less, followed an identical approach in the measurement of employment and unemployment. The basic approach in all these six quinquennial surveys have been the collection of data to generate the estimates of employment and unemployment according to the "usual status" based on a reference period of one year, the "current weekly status" based on a reference period of one week, and the "current daily status" based on each day of the seven days preceding the date of survey. In order to reveal the multi-dimensional aspects of the employment-unemployment situation in India, information on several correlates were also gathered in these surveys. Sets of probing questions on some of these aspects have also been one of the basic features of these surveys. The eighth quinquennial survey on employment-unemployment is to be carried out along with the surveys on household consumer expenditure during the 66th round survey operations (July 2009 - June 2010) of the NSSO.

A Working Group was set up for the purpose of finalising the survey methodology and schedules of enquiry of the 66th round. Considering all the aspects of current data demand and usefulness of the survey results, the Group has suggested a few improvisations, additions and deletions in the content of the schedule of enquiry for the present survey. The major changes made in the schedule for employment and unemployment survey vis-à-vis the previous quinquennial survey (NSS 61st round) are given below:

a) Instead of collecting information on number of members who got work for at least 60 days in public works during last 365 days, in the household characteristics block, a few questions will be put to the rural households for collection of information related to NREG works, such as "whether the household has NREG job card", "whether got work in NREG works during last 365 days", "number of days worked" and "mode of payment of the wages earned in NREG works".

b) At the request of Department of Posts, Government of India, information on a few items related to holding of some specified Post Office accounts and use of some specified postal services will be collected in the household characteristics block.

c) Information on "whether the household member is a beneficiary of the specified schemes", such as, "Annapurna", "ICDS","mid-day meal", and "food for work", will not be collected.

d) Information on "whether currently registered with employment exchanges" will be collected for all persons of age 15 to 45 years instead of persons of age below 65 years earlier.

e) The information on "whether receiving/received any vocational training? will be collected for persons of age 15 to 59 years, instead of persons of age 15 to 29 years. Besides collecting information on "source from where degree/diploma/certificate received?, "duration of training? and "field of training? from those who have received or are receiving "formal vocational training, as was done in NSS 61st round, information on "whether the vocational training was ever helpful in getting a job? will be collected from those who have received formal vocational training

f) Information on "voluntary participation without remuneration in production of goods and services? will not be collected in this round.

g) Some probing questions, similar to those canvassed in NSS 55th round, have been re-introduced to the self-employed persons in usual status to identify Home Based Workers (HBW). This time, this information will be collected for the self-employed engaged in non-agriculture sector as well as for those engaged in agricultural sector excluding only growing of crops, market gardening, horticulture (i.e., NIC-2004 code 011) and growing of crops combined with farming of animals (i.e., NIC-2004 code 013). Besides, the codes and its the description for "location of the enterprise? in which they are engaged, have been suitably modified to facilitate the generation of information on HBW according to the recommendation of the Independent Group on Home-Based Workers in India.

h) NIC-2004 will be used for collection and recording of household principal industry and industry of work of household members. It is important to note that the industry Divisions 96 and 97 of NIC-2004 will not be used for the purpose of collection of information on industry of activity. The entire activities described under Division 97 are not under the production boundary of ISNA and are not also considered as economic activities in the employment and unemployment surveys of NSSO. A part of the activities under Division 96 (viz. hunting and gathering, farming and the production of shelter), which is within the production boundary of ISNA, is also considered as economic activities in NSS surveys and the industry of these undifferentiated activities will be judged in the usual manner as is done now, by considering the industry in which major time is spent. Thus, this part of activities will get classified against the respective industries under divisions 01-14 relating to the primary sector or 45 relating to construction. The rest of Division 96 is outside the production boundary of ISNA and will not be considered as economic activity for the NSS survey.

i) Information on household principal occupation and on the type of occupation for the workers according to usual status and current status will be collected using 3-digit NCO-2004 codes.

j) It is to be noted that the activity status code 41 (casual wage labour in public works) has been split into two codes for assigning activity status codes as per current daily activity status and current weekly activity status, as follows:
a) worked as casual wage labour in public works other than National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG) works - 41.
b) worked as casual wage labour in National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG) works - 42.