Labour Minister flags off fieldwork of surveys on migrant workers, employment

New Delhi [India], March 31 (ANI): Labour Minister Santosh Kumar Gangwar on Wednesday flagged off the fieldwork of All India Survey on Migrant Workers and All-India Quarterly Establishment-based Employment Survey (AQEES).
These are two of the five all-India surveys that the Labour Bureau, an attached office of the Labour Ministry, is going to conduct this year.
The minister had launched the software applications for these surveys at Chandigarh earlier this year.
Speaking on the occasion, Gangwar stated that the results of both these surveys will generate highly useful data for effective policymaking in the field of labour and employment.
He mentioned that the remaining three surveys -- All India Survey 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 soon.
The Labour Bureau will conduct the five surveys in one year. With the launch of these surveys, the Bureau will cover lakhs of households over the span of the next few months to gather valuable data on migrant workers.
The Bureau will also cover various establishments under the AQEES to gather data on employment situation and change in the employment situation.
The AQEES survey 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.
The survey on migrant workers is the first focused survey on studying the socio-economic and working conditions of migrant workers. It will also assess the impact of COVID-19 on migrant workers in the country.
Expressing pleasure on the start of the fieldwork of the two surveys, Labour Secretary Apurva Chandra said that the field investigators of these two surveys will be equipped with the latest technology Tablet PCs with software applications for field data collection.
He also added that this will be a path-breaking integration of IT technology in the fieldwork of a household survey at the national level. (ANI)