Efforts on for second labour survey

Kathmandu, August 21:

Efforts are on conduct the second quinquennial survey of the labour force. The first was conducted in 1999-2000. The survey that would cost over Rs 40 million will be funded by the International Labour Organisation (ILO). “We have initiated efforts to conduct the second survey of the labour force. We have drawn up the concept. The main exercise would, get unde rway by the next fiscal year,”said Uttam Narayan Malla, the Deputy Director General of the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). Additional information and data will be collected during this survey. “The next survey will be a departure from the first. While the CBS had earlier merely compiled what is called the ‘current status’, the next one will come up with what we call the ‘usual status’,” Malla said.

While, the ‘current status’ indicates what a representative sample was doing when the enumerator had approached him with a questionnaire, ‘usual status’ indicates what he might have done the whole year. Interestingly, if anyone works for only an hour a week, his ‘current status,’ according to the ILO definition, is ‘employed.’ Malla said the exercise will collect a lot of information related to under-employment, disguised employment, time of the year when people find work, nature of the job economy and will also go on to show which sector of the economy is evolving as the employment avenue. Countries like the US conduct such surveys every month.Sri Lanka does it on a quarterly basis, India conducts such survey once a year.