Publication Page Archive

India faces a persistent challenge in generating formal, productive jobs for its growing workforce. The four new Labour Codes rolled out in November 2025, seek to address the structural imbalance in the workforce by simplifying 29 existing labour laws into a more coherent framework.  Over the next five weeks, based on their new NCAER working...   Read More

India faces a persistent challenge in generating formal sector, productive jobs for its growing workforce. The four new Labour Codes enacted in November 2025, seek to address the structural imbalance in our workforce by simplifying 29 pre-existing laws into a coherent framework to support job creation, formalisation and improve social protection of workers. In this...   Read More

Underemployment and overwork coexist in India’s youth labour market, revealing how work is unevenly distributed across people and places. India’s youth labour market presents a puzzling picture. Fewer than half of young adults aged 20–29 are employed. Yet among those who are employed, long workdays are common, often extending well beyond a standard eight hours...   Read More

NCAER News is a monthly digest where you can learn about NCAER's research outputs, its latest events, and offerings.

The Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), launched in 2017, addressed this by providing annual estimates for rural and urban areas and quarterly estimates for urban areas, replacing the episodic framework with continuous measurement.  India's struggle with timely labour statistics dates back decades. The National Sample Survey Office's (NSSO's) Employment and Unemployment Surveys operated on thick...   Read More

The IHDS Forum is a monthly update of socio-economic developments in India by the IHDS research community, based on the India Human Development Survey, jointly conducted by NCAER and the University of Maryland. While two earlier rounds of the survey were completed in 2004-05 and 2011-12, respectively. Fieldwork for the third round was undertaken in...   Read More

What if India's pathway to net zero does not end at factories—but begins where terrestrial meets the coastal? As carbon emissions rise and climate risks intensify, the search for solutions has largely remained confined to land-based approaches. Yet beneath the waves lies an overlooked trillion-dollar economic and ecological frontier, one that can absorb carbon, shield...   Read More

The National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), one of India’s premier economic policy research think tanks, carried out the 136th Round of its Business Expectations Survey (BES) in March 2026. NCAER has been carrying out the BES every quarter since 1992, covering 464 firms across four regions.

Invited as the Guest Speaker at the ICSSR National Conference on 'Business Management in the Era of Digital Transformation' at Jaypee University, Anoopshahr, on the theme “Digital Financial Transformation vs. Digital Financial Vulnerability: A Double-Edged Sword” on 25th April 2026. Invited as the Keynote Speaker at the ICSSR National Conference on 'Business Management in the Era...   Read More

The future of irrigation lies not in choosing between the big and the small, but in integrating the two within a coherent, systems-based approach. India’s irrigation story has long been told through large dams and canal networks. For decades, policy has focused on expanding major and medium irrigation projects to create irrigation potential. Yet, much...   Read More