
Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS)
PMF IAS Impact: 40 Direct Hits in Prelims 2024 and 53 Direct Hits in Prelims 2025!
- Context (PIB | BS): National Statistics Office, Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation (MOSPI) revamps Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) from January 2025.
About Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS)
- The PLFS was initiated by the National Statistical Office in 2017 for frequent labour force data.
- The inaugural annual report was published in 2019, utilising data from July 2017 to June 2018.
- PLFS’s objective is to estimate vital employment and unemployment indicators like the Labour Force Participation Rate every three months in urban areas.
- It also aims to provide yearly estimates for both rural and urban regions.
- It follows a current weekly status approach, where people are considered unemployed if they did not work for at least one hour during the week but actively sought work.
Key Indicators
- Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR): the percentage of persons in the labour force (working or seeking or available for work) in the population.
- Worker Population Ratio (WPR): defined as the percentage of employed persons in the population.
- Unemployment Rate (UR): UR is the percentage of persons unemployed among the persons in the labour force.
- According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), unemployment involves being jobless when actively seeking employment. Thus, unemployment is not synonymous with joblessness.
Activity Status
- Usual Status: Usual activity status is determined based on the reference period of the last 365 days preceding the survey date.
- Current Weekly Status (CWS): According to CWS, the labour force is the number of persons either employed or unemployed on average in the week preceding the survey date.
- Usual status unemployment rates will always be lower than CWS rates (because there is a greater probability that an individual would find work over a year compared to a week).
Key Changes Introduced in PLFS
- Monthly Estimates of Key Labour Market Indicators: Monthly estimates of LFPR, WPR and UR at the all-India level following the Current Weekly Status (CWS) approach.
- The monthly estimates will help in timely policy interventions.
- Extending Quarterly Estimates to Rural Areas: Quarterly estimates of employment and unemployment indicators will be available for both rural and urban areas, and hence for the entire country.
- Moving to the Approach of Calendar Year Reporting: The annual PLFS results will be brought out based on the calendar year i.e. survey period of January – December of a specific year.
- It will facilitate comprehensive analysis of labour market performance through review of key employment unemployment indicators.
- Enhanced Sample Size: 12 households from each of the selected First Stage Units, which implies an overall sample size of around 2,72,304 households, thus a 2.65 time increase in sample households.
- The enhanced sample size is expected to provide reliable estimates of labour market indicators with improved precision.
- Representation of Districts in PLFS Sample: The district has been made the primary geographical unit, called basic stratum within a state/UT separately for rural and urban sectors for selecting FSUs for most part of the geography covered.
- This will ensure the presence of sample observations from most of the districts in the PLFS sample, which will improve the representativeness of the estimates generated.
PLFS Annual Report 2023-24: Key Findings
Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR)
- Rural areas: Increased from 50.7% in 2017-18 to 63.7% in 2023-24.
- Urban areas: Increased from 47.6% to 52.0%.
- Males: Increased from 75.8% in 2017-18 to 78.8% in 2023-24.
- Female: Increased from 23.3% to 41.7%.
- For Muslim women: Increased from 15% in 2021-22 to 21.4% in 2023-24.
- For Hindu women: Increased from 26.1% in 2021-22 to 33.3%.
Worker Population Ratio (WPR)
- Rural areas: Increased from 48.1% in 2017-18 to 62.1% in 2023-24.
- Urban areas: Increased from 43.9% to 49.4%.
- Male: Increased from 71.2% in 2017-18 to 76.3% in 2023-24.
- Female: Increased from 22.0% to 40.3%.
Unemployment Rate
- No improvement in the unemployment scenario, neither in youth unemployment nor in overall unemployment. The overall unemployment rate is 3.2%, similar to last year.
- Unpaid family labour has increased. Workers’ participation in agriculture has risen for fourth time.