About 77,000 jobs were created in July-September 2016 compared with the previous quarter, with key sectors like manufacturing, construction and information technology showing a dip in job creation, according to jobs data released by the Labour Bureau on Friday, as part of a revamped survey process.
“At the all-India level, the estimated change in employment in 8 selected sectors stood at 77,000,” said the Quarterly Report on Employment Scenario report by the Labour Bureau, under the Labour and Employment Ministry.
The survey showed that services sectors such as trade, transport, accommodation, education and health saw an overall increase in employment by 1.28 lakh. The education sector saw the highest increase of 51,000, followed by health, trade and transport. However, in July-September last year, the IT-BPO sector saw a dip of 16,000 jobs compared with the previous quarter.
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Economists said declining jobs in the IT sector could be attributed to uncertainty in the market due to U.S Presidential election results.
While the construction sector lost 23,000 jobs, analysts were surprised by a dip in manufacturing jobs by 12,000. “Ideally, employment in the manufacturing sector should have picked up as July-September is a pre-festive quarter,” said Pronab Sen, former chairman at National Statistical Commission.
Economists said the Oct.-Dec. 2016 quarter could witness a dip in jobs due to demonetisation of high-value currency notes. “Most of these sectors will see a fall in employment in October-December due to demonetisation with companies cutting down contractual jobs,” Madan Sabnavis, Chief Economist at CARE Ratings said.
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According to the latest survey, around 83 per cent of the 12,000 jobs were lost by female workers in the manufacturing sector. Also, mostly casual and contract labour lost their jobs in the manufacturing sector. “The trends in the manufacturing sector reflect that there were job losses in the textile sector which is an unhealthy sign before festive season,” Mr. Sen said.
The Labour Bureau, under the Ministry of Labour and Employment, started conducting this quarterly survey after the 2008-09 global crisis to gauge its impact on employment in various sectors. However, the Ministry decided to expand the scope of the job survey to over 10,000 establishments compared to around 2,000 previously. The survey also covered all states as against only 11 states covered in the previous reports. The previous survey results released in March 2016 showed 1.35 lakh jobs were created in 2015 – the lowest in seven years. Following the survey, the Labour Bureau didn’t come out with survey reports for January-March 2016 and initiated the field work in May 2016 for June-ended quarter.
“The industrial growth slowed down in July-September so job cut in manufacturing sector is expected. Construction activity also slowed down due to the monsoon season. However, decline in the IT sector is unexpected and could be due to a pause in business coming in from the United States,”