Why disclosing the withheld jobs report could improve GDP numbers too

New Delhi: he suppression of the National Sample Survey Office’s jobs report has been at the receiving end of much criticism, but one fallout of the non-disclosure has gained little attention: the lack of reliable jobs data could bring a decade-long effort to improve estimates of informal sector activity to a creaking halt. The lack of a high-frequency labour market indicator meant that so far India has not fully met the Special Data Dissemination Standard of the International Monetary Fund, established in 1996 to guide member countries “in providing their economic and financial data to the public”. Based on the pilots suggested by the Kundu committee and feedback from other committees that looked into the issue, the NSC recommended a survey questionnaire that was similar to the quinquennial employment-unemployment surveys, and which would provide quarterly estimates for urban areas, and annual estimates for both urban and rural areas, setting the stage for the launch of the PLFS survey in 2016. “Unlike the earlier surveys, in the PLFS survey, the enumerator revisits a sampled respondent, and this can change the nature of responses the enumerator gets,” said Kundu, who first laid the groundwork for the PLFS.