Unincorporated enterprises in the manufacturing sector lost nearly 1.8 million establishments and shed 5.4 million jobs between July 2015-June 2016 and October 2022-September 2023, an analysis of the fact sheet on ‘Annual Survey of Unincorporated Sector Enterprises (ASUSE)’ and the comparable 73rd round survey in 2015-16 by the National Statistical Office(NSO) showed.

• An estimated 17.82 million unincorporated enterprises operated in the manufacturing sector in October 2022-September 2023, nearly 9.3 per cent down from 19.7 million unincorporated enterprises in July 2015- June 2016.
• The number of workers engaged by these establishments declined by nearly 15 per cent to 30.6 million (2022-23) from 36.04 million (2015-16).
• Business Standard reported on June 15 that even after adding 11.7 million workers in the October 2022-September 2023 period from the pandemic lows in April 2021-March 2022, total workers employed in the vast informal sector in India -at 109.6 million — still remained below the pre-pandemic period.