The government on Thursday said that the unemployment figures of the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) released in May cannot be compared to the previous unemployment rate as the methodology and the periodicity of the survey has been changed.

Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Statistics, Programme Implementation & Planning Rao Inderjit Singh was responding to a query raised by Amar Singh during Question Hour in the Rajya Sabha, asking for the government’s reaction to 7.8 per cent youth being unemployed.

The minister said that previously, the survey used to be conducted every five years, but in 2016- 2017, the government felt that “five years becomes too long a period”. The government felt that it would be better if it was conducted every year, he told the House.

He said all the four quarters of the year are now surveyed, adding that the methodology has also been changed. “Because the methodology has changed, IT has been used, education has also been factored in,” the minister said. He said that due to these reasons, a higher unemployment rate can be seen in PLFS.

The minister said that if the older methodology had been used this time too, the unemployment would have had been similar to the 2.2 per cent unemployment that the NSSO data showed for 2011- 2012.

In response to Amar Singh’s supplementary question about the data of the PLFS being leaked before the elections, the minister said that the government intended to release the data on May 31, but it was leaked before that. “We cannot say who leaked it, but someone has indeed leaked it and we have taken it seriously,” he commented.

Responding to other members on the same topic, Singh said that the government “takes unemployment very, very seriously” and mentioned several steps taken by it to alleviate unemployment. He said, “Taking into account the seriousness of the matter, the government has appointed a Cabinet Committee on Employment and Skill Development to ensure that more people get jobs in the foreseeable future.”

Samajwadi Party’s Ram Gopal Yadav said that the government has claimed it has provided jobs “at a large scale” and yet there was a high rate of unemployment. The minister replied that since a new model to gauge employment and unemployment has been adopted, “you can’t compare apples to oranges”.

He said, “The only comparability that can happen is when the next year (when the next report comes out).”