ENUMERATION OF WORKERS:

Now, let us discuss about the sources of data in India on workers. In India, two main organisations which generate and compile data on workers are the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) and Office of the Registrar General of Census. These two organisations generate quite a substantial data on the workers, employment and unemployment etc. on regular intervals for the entire country.  Within these two sources, NSSO provides more data on employment and unemployment. For understanding and studying the data  given in National Sample Survey (NSS) Rounds, it is important to be well aware of the concepts that are used in these data collection exercises. First of all, NSSO uses the concept of 'Usual Principal Status' (UPS) as a time reference period for identifying workers. In more general terms, NSSO uses three reference periods to describe the activity status of a worker. These reference periods are-a year, a week and a day.  

•  The  UPS identifies these reference periods of workers' activity status. More generally NSSO adopts a year as a reference period to identify the UPS status of workers. Taking a year as a reference period, NSSO identifies people as employed, unemployed or out of labour force. Thus, on the basis of UPS of people, a person is known to be employed if he or she was engaged in an economic activity for a longer period of time (183 days or more) in 365 days. In the similar fashion, a person is known to be unemployed if that person is available for work but is not engaged in any economic activity.  

•  'Subsidiary Status' - A 'subsidiary status worker' is that worker who was engaged in an economic activity in a subsidiary capacity during the reference period. The UPS employed and the subsidiary status workers together make single group of employed in the economy.