-Firstpost.com The labour ministry has put the Quarterly Employment Survey (QES) on the back burner as it wants to transition to computing payroll data based on Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) subscriptions, based on data from the Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) and the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA), according to this report in The Economic Times. Of course, the EPFO-based jobs data gives one a better picture about the...

-The Indian Express GDP growth rates for pre-2011-12 years, making it impossible to compare the new growth data with the growth during the UPA years. New Delhi: From a new gross domestic product (GDP) series to a revised Index of Industrial Production and inflation indices, alongside fresh interventions including payroll reporting based on EPFO data, statistical measurement tools to gauge economic development underwent some change over the past four years. In the...

-The Hindu Centre for Politics and Public Policy As Prime Minister Narendra Modi completes four years in office this month, it is becoming increasingly clear that his government has fallen short on the promises made during the 2014 election campaign. The economy has performed below expectations, and some of the economic metrics today are weaker than what the country witnessed in the last years – labelled the ‘policy paralysis’ phase –...

-The Indian Express The problem is under-employment. It won’t be resolved if the residually-employed are notionally shifted from the informal to formal sector. In an article in January, Soumya Kanti Ghosh and Pulak Ghosh (Ghosh and Ghosh) claimed that seven million new jobs have been created in the formal sector. Their claim is based on the increase in registration under the Employees Provident Fund (EPFO), National Pension Scheme and Employees State Insurance...

-The Hindu India must debate solutions to the employment problem, as a true democracy should and would In January this year, the Prime Minister made this statement: “7 million new jobs created in 2017”. The statement draws on false conclusions of a study by two economists. Here is another: “10-12 million young people join the workforce every year and 7 million new and formal jobs were created in 2017,” said the Minister of...