We mistake trees for the wood

On the BSE website, on the center top, just above the Sensex, there are two very interesting bits of data – one is the consumer sentiment index and the other is unemployment rate. Both in percentage, this is probably the only site in India where we get real time data on these two very important statistics.

This number is not something pulled out a hat – it is extremely authentic if you are aware about the credibility of CMIE. So this data is prepared by BSE in collaboration with leading business information firm CMIE. It is also for the first time that we see a NGO producing an unemployment measure for any country in the world.

The indices are based on response received from over 1.30 lakh individuals in about 39,600 households, both in rural and urban regions of the country. Unemployment data is a 30-day moving average measure on a daily basis and a monthly unemployment rate at the end of every month.

Click on both the data and it takes you to a page which has so much data, so much research.

The point of talking about this , apart from bringing attention to this very important data is the fact that we often miss the smaller and sometimes more relevant things in the clutter of the big picture. Here, in front of our eyes, we have been seeing two very important economic data since April’16, yet we don’t actually see. That’s how it has become in this era of information overload – we miss the relevant.