Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS)

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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.

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.

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).

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.

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%.

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.