Job data leak serious: Govt

New Delhi, July 18

Admitting in the Rajya Sabha that data on unemployment in the country was leaked, the government today said taking this as a “serious matter”, efforts are being made to find out the individual “who did it”. 

Responding to a supplementary in the House, Minister of State for Planning and Statistics Rao Inderjit Singh said, it was “unfortunate” that data pertaining to unemployment figures was leaked ahead of its scheduled official announcement in May. 

“Maybe someone has an agenda behind it and the data was leaked. We are making efforts to ascertain who was behind the leak,” Singh said, adding that some changes were also made in the methodology and technology and that is why “there is a difference in previous surveys done by NSSO”.

He said it was decided to change the methodology for ascertaining unemployment rates as a periodic survey is now being done every year based on quarterly data, against the earlier practice of doing it every five-year. The 2.2 unemployment rate would have been same as brought out by the NSSO earlier if it was made out for five years, but this has increased both in rural and urban areas. — TNS