The third edition of the Quarterly Employment Survey (QES) for the period October to December 2021 was released recently by the government. While the total employment increased by 4.5 lakhs compared to the previous quarter, data indicated a fall in the share of regular employees. Financial services is the only sector in which there are more self-employed females than males. The Ministry of Labour & Employment recently released the report of the third edition of Quarterly Employment Survey (QES) for the period October to December 2021. This report is part of the ‘All-India Quarterly Establishment-based Employment Survey (AQEES)’ conducted by the Labour Bureau. The current report is the third in the series. About the AQEES The first publication covering the first quarter of 2021-22, was published in September 2021 and the second publication covering the second quarter was published in January 2022. The aim of AQEES is to provide quarterly updates about employment vacancies, training, and other related parameters for selected nine (9) sectors of the non-farm economy over successive quarters. The nine (9) sectors which account for a substantial share of the total employment in the non-farm establishments in the country are- Manufacturing, Construction, Trade, Transport, Education, Health, Accommodation & Restaurants, Information Technology (IT) & Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), and Financial Services. The selected nine sectors account for around 85% of the total employment in units with 10 or more workers as per the 6 Economic Census. For this survey, around 12,000 units were targeted to be covered from those establishments employing 10 or more workers in the organised sector from these 9 sectors. These were selected from the Directory of Establishments in the Sixth Economic Census. Units established after 2013-2014 are not included in the survey. A schedule that contains details pertaining to identification, establishment particulars, employment with the breakup of characteristics such as gender, type, and nature along with vacancy details, skill development program conducted, on-the-job training provided by establishments and others has been used for the survey. Detailed information on the methodology and limitations of the survey was published by Factly earlier. 75% of the units covered are from 4 sectors- Manufacturing, Trade, Education, & Accommodation For QES-3, a total of 11,612 establishments were visited of which 778 units were found either closed or non-existing on the date of the survey. Information was collected only from 10,834 units belonging to one of these nine sectors, including 49 establishments from outside the coverage of the survey. A total of 10,867 units were covered in the first round and 11,503 units were covered in the second round. The sector-wise number of units covered in each quarter is provided in the following table. Among the various sectors covered, the highest number of sample establishments were from the manufacturing sector, followed by Trade, Education, and Accommodation & Restaurants. These four sectors alone accounted for 75% of the units visited for the survey. The estimated total employment has increased by 4.5 lakhs in Q3 compared to Q2 The estimated total employment in the nine selected sectors was 3.145 crores in the third quarter of 2021-22. This is about 4.5 lakhs more than in the second quarter with 3.1 crores estimated employment and about 6.5 lakh more than in the first quarter which was 3.08 crores. According to the Sixth Economic Census (2013-14), the total employment for these 9 sectors was reported as 2.37 crores. The minister of Labour and Employment tweeted that ‘the report on 3rd Round (Oct–Dec, 2021) of Quarterly Employment Survey shows a rising trend in employment in organised sector, employing 10 or more workers, of the selected 9 sectors.’ This report comes at a time when the issue of unemployment is being discussed widely in the country. The share of non-profit institutions in the health and education sectors has increased Based on ownership, almost 30% of the establishments were proprietary establishments and 21.5% were private limited companies. Compared to the previous quarters, the share of private limited companies has dropped from 24.8%. Government/PSUs account for 20.5% and non-profit institutions account for about 11.7%. The share of partnerships is below 10% while that of cooperatives, and others including SHGs is below 5% each. Further, about 83.5% of the establishments in the IT/BPO sector were private limited companies. The share of proprietary establishments in this sector has dropped from more than 13% in the first quarter to 11.7% in the third quarter.