India’s first national employment policy to create more jobs

The committee will comprise representatives from the industry, ministries, including labour, skill development, commerce and agriculture, experts and economists, as well as officials from the department for promotion of industry and internal trade, an official from the labour ministry said.

The committee will draw upon extensive studies of the labour market and factor in the impact of the pandemic on shifts in employment patterns, and is expected to lay down sector-specific investment plans to boost jobs in sectors that depend on a large workforce, such as textiles.

The recommendations of the committee will be based on data from five ongoing national employment surveys, which will cover both the formal and informal segments of the economy. Data obtained from these surveys will thus help design social security measures for those employed in the gig economy, migrants and other informal workers.

Union labour minister Bupender Yadav recently launched the country’s first survey of domestic workers, the latest among the five national jobs surveys aimed at analysing data on India’s vast informal workforce.

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In September, the government released the results of the first All-India Quarterly Establishment-based Employment Survey (AQEES) for the April-June 2021 quarter.

India lacks an official short-term, high-frequency jobs data and the AQEES is meant to fill the critical gap, according to Hindustan News.