Context: Recently, Minister of State (I/C) for Labour and Employment has launched the official Logo of “Labour Bureau”. 

Key Points

• It displays the three goals that Labour Bureau aspires to achieve in producing quality data i.e. Accuracy, Validity and Reliability.
• Significance: The new logo encapsulates the essence of three core areas of the bureau - rural, agriculture and industrial workers.
• The logo represents three goals that the Labour Bureau aims to achieve in producing quality data - accuracy, validity and reliability.
• Blue cog wheel represents work: The choice of blue colour signifies that the organization deals with blue collar workers in rural and agriculture sectors. 
• The line graph shows ups and downs in the employment sector as it captures ground realities.
• The logo will now take the message deeper about our existence, our work and what it stands for.

About the Labour Bureau

• It is the data and survey wing of the union labour ministry.
• The foundations of the Labour Bureau can be traced to the Royal Commission on Labour in 1931.
• The Commission underlined the need for systematic collection of labour statistics relating to living, working and socio-economic conditions of industrial labour. 
• A committee was set up in 1940 to recommend a statistical body for measuring change in prices following the Second World War. 
• Accordingly, the Directorate of Cost of Living was established in Shimla 1941 and in 1946 the directorate was renamed Labour Bureau.

Functions of Labour Bureau:

• Responsible for the collation, collection and publication: Of statistics and related information on wages, earnings, productivity, absenteeism, labour turn-over, industrial relations, working and living conditions and evaluation of working of various labour enactments etc. 
• Storehouse of important economic indicators: Like Consumer Price Index Numbers for Industrial, Agricultural and Rural Labourers; wage rate indices and data on industrial relations, socio-economic conditions in the organized and unorganised sector of industry etc. 

The functions/activities of Labour Bureau can be classified under three major heads:

• Labour Intelligence
• Labour Research
• Monitoring and evaluation studies under the Minimum Wages Act 1948.
• The labour bureau is an important organisation as it is essential to value real data and make policies to improve situations wherever necessary.