The Central government may be clueless about employment in the country since 2016 as the Ministry of Labour and Employment has stopped carrying out its surveys. The Labour Bureau under the ministry has not conducted any survey to find out the actual data of employment in the country since 2016.

In a reply to a question in the parliament whether the Labour Bureau has conducted any surveys to find out the actual data of employment in the country, the union Minister of State for Labour and Employment (independent charge) Santosh Kumar Gangwar said, "On the recommendations of Task Force on Employment, however, this survey has been discontinued."

The minister stated that the Labour Bureau has conducted six household based Annual Employment-Unemployment Surveys (EUS) since 2010 till 2016 and reports of five rounds have been released till date. "The report of the fifth round of Annual Employment-Unemployment Survey (EUS) was released in September, 2016," he stated.

The minister further pointed out that since 2016, Labour Bureau has been conducting Quarterly Employment Survey (QES) for enterprises employing 10 or more workers. Six reports of QES have been released so far.

As per the 2016 Labour Bureau report, the unemployment rate in India shot up to a five-year high of 5 per cent in 2015-16, with the figure significantly higher at 8.7 per cent for women as compared to 4.3 per cent for men. As per the report, in rural sector, unemployment rate was 5.1 per cent, whereas in urban sector, the rate was 4.9 percent under the usual principal status (UPS) approach.

Then the figures had left the Central government, which has taken a series of steps such as 'Make in India' to create jobs for inclusive growth in the country, pondering how to improve the scenarios and create jobs. But in place of creating more jobs, the government stopped carrying out the Annual Employment-Unemployment Surveys thereafter.

According to the fifth annual employment-unemployment survey at the all-India level, about 77 per cent of the households were reported to be having no regular wage or salaried person.