-TheWire.in Manufacturing jobs actually fell in absolute terms from 58.9 million in 2011-12 to 48.3 million in 2015-16. Economists have been writing for some months that, contrary to the claims of the government, there is plenty of data available that shows unmistakably that unemployment is high and rising. Educated unemployment has worsened just as young people are getting better educated, and expect to work outside agriculture in industry and services. We have done this...

-The Hindu There needs to be robust infrastructure for official statistics so that governments do not suppress inconvenient truths Over the past two weeks, headlines have focussed on declining employment between 2011-12 and 2016-17; loss of jobs under the National Democratic Alliance government, particularly post-demonetisation; and the government’s refusal to release a report using the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) documenting this decline, leading to resignations of two members of the National...

-The Indian Express The state has failed to create capacities for a timely, reliable, decentralised data regime. The credibility of India’s data systems is under serious threat with the recent controversy over the employment data of the national sample survey. While the Census of India and the national sample survey Organisation (NSSO) have a good reputation, when it comes to data related to the social sector — health, education, nutrition —...

-Working Paper No. 74, Nabakrushna Choudhury Centre for Development Studies, Bhubaneswar In this paper, we revisit the well-known debate on the inverse relationship between farm-size and agricultural productivity. Using unit level data from Situation Assessment Survey (SAS) of Agricultural Households in the 70th Round national sample survey (NSS), we test the relationship between yield (output per hectare) and land operated as well as the relationship between net returns per hectare and...

-The Hindu India’s labour participation rate, very low by world standards, fell sharply after demonetisation. Women bore the brunt Monthly measurement of the unemployment rate is one of the requirements of the Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS) of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The SDDS — India was one of the early signatories —was established in 1996 to help countries access the international capital markets by providing adequate economic and financial information...