The fourth edition of the Quarterly Employment Survey (QES) for the period January to March 2022 was released recently by the government. While the total employment increased by 3.5 lakhs compared to the previous quarter, data indicated that the share of female employees fell in IT/BPO & Financial Services sectors. The Ministry of Labour & Employment recently released ‘Fourth Round of Quarterly Employment Survey’ (QES) report. The report is for the January 2022 to March 2022 period. The first round of this report covered the period of April 2021 to June 2021. This report is part of the All-India Quarterly Establishment based Employment Survey (AQEES). AQEES aims to provide quarterly updates about employment related parameters across selected 9 sectors from non-farm economy. As per the 6 Economic Census (EC), these 9 sectors account for around 85% of the total employment in non-farm units with 10 or more workers. Therefore, the trends in employment across these sectors are expected to be indicative of the larger employment scenario of the economy. The nine (9) sectors are- Manufacturing, Construction, Trade, Transport, Education, Health, Accommodation & Restaurants, Information Technology (IT) & Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), and Financial Services. Factly’s analysis of the earlier rounds of QES can be read here – Q1, Q2 & Q3. Information collected for 10.9 thousand units out of 12 thousand allotted samples A total of 12,038 units were selected for the survey based on ‘Stratified Simple Random Sampling’. These units remain the same across the different rounds of QES. Out of these units that were selected as sample, 11,732 establishments were visited as part of the 4 round of survey. However, out of these, 823 units were found either closed or non-existing. Therefore, the information was collected from only 10.9 thousand units. Even among these units, 52 units were found to be outside the coverage of the survey. The total number of units visited in the earlier three rounds of QES were 10,867, 11,503 & 11,612 respectively. As was the case with Q3, the number of units for which samples were collected for the sectors – Construction, IT/BPO & Financial Services in Q4 is lower than those surveyed in Q2. This also implies a lesser coverage in the survey in these sectors compared to the allocated sample units for the respective sectors. Estimated total employment increased by 3.5 lakhs in Q4, with IT/BPO sector being the main contributor As per the survey, the total estimated work force in Q4 was 3.18 crores across 5.31 lakh establishments. This is 3.5 lakhs more than the Q3 figure, where in the estimated work force was 3.145 crores in slightly higher number of establishments. The increase is smaller compared to Q3, where in 4.5 lakh workforce was added compared to Q2. There is a fall in the number of workers estimated to be working in the Manufacturing sector, which employs the highest number of workers. In Q4, an estimated 1.22 crores workers were engaged in this sector, while in Q3 it was nearly 1.24 crores i.e., around 1.45 lakh more than the Q4 estimation for those working in manufacturing sector. Despite the fall in the number of workers in this major sector, the overall increase in the estimated workforce is due to the increase in IT/BPO sector. In Q3, the estimated workforce in this sector was 34.56 lakhs across 4650 establishments. This increased to 38.31 lakhs across 4719 establishments in Q4. The Health Sector is estimated to have added around 0.94 lakhs to its workforce during Q4. The proportionate change in other sectors is lesser, with a fall in estimated workforce in Education and Construction sectors. The share of employees in Manufacturing out of the total estimated work force fell by 0.9% while it increased by 1% for IT/BPO sector. An increase in the Proprietary ownership among IT/BPO establishments The share of different types of ownership of the establishments surveyed remained nearly the same during Q4. The greatest proportion of the ownership is proprietary with 29.97%, followed by Private Ltd. Ownership, which is 21.3%. Another 20.6% of the establishments surveyed were categorised as Government/PSUs. The proportion of ownerships is varied and differs from sector to sector. Manufacturing units have 42.7% of ownership as Propriety, while 35.2% are Private Ltd. Companies, and 14.75% is in the form of Partnerships. Other sectors which have a higher proportion of their ownership as Proprietary include Trade, and Accommodation & Restaurants. In the case of Education establishments, 43% are Government/PSUs while 31.8% are run as Non-Profit Institutions. Health Sector also has a significant share of ownership as Government/ PSUs, and NGOs.