In December 2024, the National Statistical Office (NSO), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) released the results of ‘Annual Survey of Unincorporated Sector Enterprises (ASUSE) for 2023-24’. The report has covered the time period from October 2023 to September 2024.
- As per the report, fresh new employment creation in the unincorporated non-agricultural sector slowed in October 2023 to September 2024 period, with additional job generation declining to 10.97 million compared to 11.74 million in October 2022- September 2023.
- The number of new establishments in the unincorporated non-agricultural sector has increased from 5.34 million during 2022-23 to 8.35 million in 2023-24.
Note: Unincorporated enterprises are those business entities that are not legally registered under the Companies Act, 1956 or under the Companies Act, 2013.
About ASUSE for 2023-24:
i.The main objective of this survey is to measure various economic and operational characteristics of unincorporated establishments in manufacturing, trade and other services sectors except, construction sector.
ii.The survey collects data on various economic features of this sector like: number of workers, Gross Value Added (GVA), emoluments paid, fixed asset owned, outstanding debt, besides, various types of operational features such as: ownership, nature of operation, registration status, among others.
iii.This latest survey collected data from a total of 4,98,024 establishments, of which 2,73,085 in rural and 2,24,939 in urban areas, from 16,842 surveyed First Stage Units(FSUs), of which 8,523 in rural and 8,319 in urban areas.
Key Findings:
i.The report highlighted that total number of unincorporated establishments increased significantly from 65 million (in 2022-23) to 73.4 million (in 2023-24), registering a growth of 12.84%.
- This increase in the number of establishments in the unincorporated non-agricultural sector was mainly led by the growth of Own Account Enterprises (OAEs) which grew from 85.1% (2022-23) to 86.4 %( 2023-24).
- Also, the number of establishments in the “Other Services” sector which includes activities like transportation, communication, real estate and finance, among others, registered a growth of 23.55% followed by a 13% increase recorded by the manufacturing sector.
ii.The number of workers employed in the sector has increased from 109.6 million between October 2022-September 2023 to 120.6 million between October 2023 and September 2024. “Other Services” sector recorded the highest growth of 17.86% in terms of number of workers employed for 2023-2024, followed by the manufacturing sector (10.03%).
iii.The report also showed GVA by the unincorporated non-agricultural sector increased by 16.52% from Rs 15.42 trillion (in October 2022-September 2023 ) to Rs 17.97 trillion (in October 2023-September 2024).
- This growth was mainly attributed to a 26.17% increase in other service sectors.
iv.GVA per worker (measure of labour productivity of the sector), increased from Rs 1,41,769 in 2022-23 to Rs 1,49,742 in 2023-24 in current prices marking an increase of 5.62%.
- While, Gross Value of Output (GVO) per establishment has also increased from Rs 4,63,389 to Rs 4,91,862 in current prices.
v.Also, average emolument per hired worker increased by 13%, to Rs 1.41 lakh in 2023-24 from Rs 1.24 lakh in 2022-23, indicating improvement in wage signals.
vi.As per the survey, share of female-owned proprietary establishments has increased from 22.9% (in 2022-23) to 26.2% (in 2023-24).
vii.The share of establishments using the internet has increased from 21.1% (in 2022-23) to 26.7% (in 2023-24). This increase was led by manufacturing sector with a growth of slightly more than 16%.
About Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementaion (MoSPI):
Minister of State (MoS)(Independent Charge, IC)–Rao Inderjit Singh (Constituency- Gurugram, Haryana)