The nine selected sectors selected for the survey are manufacturing, construction, trade, transport, education, health, accommodation & restaurant, IT/BPO and financial services, accounting for a majority of the total employment in the non-farm establishments.

“Of the total employment estimated in the selected nine sectors, Manufacturing accounts for nearly 41% followed by Education with 22%, and Health 8%. Trade as well as and IT/BPO each engaged 7% of the total estimated number of workers,” informed Labour and Employment Minister Bhupender Yadav while releasing the QES on Monday.

Here are the key highlights of QES:

– As per the report, the most impressive growth of 152% has been recorded in the IT/BPO sector, while growth rates in health is 77%, in education it is 39%, in manufacturing it is 22%, in transport it is 68% and in construction it is 42% . 

-However, employment in trade came down by 25% and in accommodation & restaurant the decline was by 13%. Financial services saw a growth rate in employment of 48%.

-Nearly 90% of the establishments have been estimated to work with less than 100 workers, the corresponding figure during sixth Economic Census (EC) being 95%. Nearly 35% of the IT/ BPO establishments worked with at least 100 workers, including about 13.8% engaging 500 workers or more. In the Health sector, 18% of the establishments had 100 or more workers.

-The over-all participation of female workers stood at 29%, slightly lower than 31% reported during 6th EC.

-Regular workers constitute 88% of the estimated workforce in the nine selected sectors, with only 2% being casual workers. However, 18% of workers in the Construction sector are contractual employees and 13% are casual workers.

-Only 9% of the establishments (with at least 10 workers) were not registered with any authority or under any act. While 26% of all the establishments were registered under the Companies Act with 71% registration in IT/ BPO, 58% registration in Construction, 46% in Manufacturing, 42% in Transport, 35% in Trade and 28% in Financial Services.

-Around 18% of the establishments have provision of on-job skill training programmes.

There are two components under AQEES, Quarterly Employment Survey (QES) and Area Frame Establishment Survey (AFES). QES has been initiated to compile relevant data from about 12,000 establishments selected through a sampling design to represent each of the nine sectors within each state/ Union Territory, as also each size-class (range of number of workers) within each sector-State/ UT.

Area Frame Establishment Survey (AFES) covers the unorganised segment (with less than 10 workers) through a sample survey. AQEES will provide a consolidated picture with both the organised and the unorganised segments of the non-farm economy. The first round of QES had a reference date of April 1, 2021 for the different items of information about an establishment.

The new QES was launched today after the earlier such survey was suspended in 2018. The new QES has one more added sector in it–financial services–compared to the previous one.