Ministry of labour launches new Wage Rate Index

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A new series of Wage Rate Index (WRI) is being compiled and maintained by the Labour Bureau, with 2016 as a base year has been released by the Ministry of Labour, according to media reports.

The new series of WRI with 2016 as base will replace the old series which had 1963-65 as base, a statement from the labour ministry said.

Periodically, the government revises the base year for major economic indicators to reflect the changes in the economy and to capture the wage pattern of workers, it said.

Thus, to enhance the coverage and to make index more representative, the National Statistical Commission etc, has revised the base year from 1963-65 to 2016 by the Labour Bureau to enhance the coverage and make the index more representative.

The new series of WRI has increased the scope and coverage in terms of number of industries, sample size, occupations under selected industries, weightage of industries etc.

This base revision of WRI will play a critical role in coming out with minimum wages and national floor wages along with other parameters which will be decided by the expert group in due course of time, said Professor S P Mukherjee and other members of the expert group on Minimum Wages & National Floor Wages.

37 industries in new WRI series

As of January 1 and July 1 of every year, the new WRI series would be compiled twice a year on point-to-point half-yearly basis.

In the new WRI series, the weighing diagram has been prepared from the results of the Occupational Wage Survey (seventh) round.

Totally 37 industries have been covered in the new WRI basket as against 21 industries in the 1963-65 series.

The selected 37 industries in the new series are categorized as 30 industries from the manufacturing sector, four from the mining sector and three industries from the plantation sector.

The previous series had 14 industries from the manufacturing sector, four from the mining sector and three from the plantation sector.

The current wage data has been collected from 2,881 units under 37 selected industries in the new WRI basket as against 1,256 units under 21 industries in the old series.