Labour Ministry begins field work for surveys on migrant workers, employment

Ravi S Singh
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, March 31

The Union Labour Ministry and Employment on Wednesday launched the field work of the much awaited All India Survey on Migrant Workers and the All-India Quarterly Establishment based Employment Survey (AQEES).

These are two of the five All India Surveys that Labour Bureau is going to conduct this year. 

Flagging of the,survey vide video conference here, Labour Minister Santosh Kumar Gangwar said that the results of both these surveys will generate highly useful data for effective policy making in the field of labour and employment.

“The remaining three surveys namely All India Surveys on Domestic workers, All India Survey on Employment generated by professionals and All India Survey on Employment generated in transport sector will be launched by the Bureau shortly,” Gangwar said.

Sources said the Ministry is pushing for availability of the results of the two surveys this year.

With the launch of these surveys, the Bureau will cover lakhs of households over the span of next few months to gather valuable data on migrant workers. It will also cover various establishments under the AQEES to gather data on employment situation and change in employment situation.

These surveys will provide crucial data for policy formulation in the field of labour and employment.

The AQEES survey holds the objective of collecting employment data on the quarterly basis. It is designed to be Establishment based Employment Survey which would provide on a quarterly basis the employment estimates for establishments employing 10 or more workers and for the establishments recruiting 9 or less workers.

This will address a major data gap in the biggest segment of the Indian labour market.

On a similar vein the Migrant Worker Survey is the first focused survey on studying the socio-economic and working conditions of migrant workers. It will also assess the impact of COVID19 on migrant workers in India.

Due to lack of adequate data, the Centre and the state governments were handicapped with regard to drawing up relief and rehabilitation plans for migrant workers affected during the Covid-19 generated national lockdown.  

“These surveys will prove highly useful in providing Government crucial data on migrant workers and the employment situation in formal and informal enterprises” Labour Bureau of India’s Director General DP Negi said.