Labour Force Indicators in Current Weekly Status(CWS)

Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR)

• In Urban areas, LFPR increased for males (74.3% in 2023 to 75.6% in 2024) and slightly for females (25.5% to 25.8%), leading to an overall rise in LFPR (50.3% to 51.0%). Overall LFPR remained constant at 56.2%, despite minor variations across categories.

Worker Population Ratio (WPR)

• Slight improvements were seen across all categories, particularly in the overall WPR (47.0% to 47.6%) in Urban areas. At all India level overall WPR remained relatively unchanged (53.4% to 53.5%).

Unemployment Rate (UR)

• In rural area, marginal decline in overall unemployment (4.3% to 4.2%), with slight reductions for both men and women. In urban male unemployment rose (6.0% to 6.1%), but female unemployment declined (8.9% to 8.2%), keeping the overall urban rate stable at 6.7%. At all India level, Unemployment saw a minor drop (5.0% to 4.9%), suggesting slight improvements in employment opportunities.

• Decline in unpaid helpers in household enterprises seems to have contributed to the drop in WPR as well as LFPR among rural females, as the percentage of “helpers in Household Enterprises” decreased from 19.9% to 18.1%  from 2023 to 2024.

Labour Force Indicators in Principal and Subsidiary Status(PS+SS)

Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR)

• The labour force participation rate (LFPR) in India remained largely stable between 2023 and 2024, though there were some variations across rural and urban areas. At the national level, the overall LFPR remained nearly unchanged, with a marginal decline from 59.8% to 59.6%.

Worker Population Ratio (WPR)

• The worker population ratio (WPR) followed a similar pattern. At the all-India level, WPR recorded a marginal decline, moving from 58.0% to 57.7%, indicating a slight drop in employment despite stable participation rates.

Unemployment Rate (UR)

• Unemployment rates (UR) showed mixed trends across different sectors. At the all-India level, unemployment recorded a minor increase from 3.1% to 3.2%, though the levels remain relatively low.

1. Introduction

The Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) was launched by the National Statistics Office in April 2017 with the view of making labour force data available at more frequent time intervals.

The objective of PLFS has been primarily twofold:

• to estimate the key employment and unemployment indicators (viz. Worker Population Ratio, Labour Force Participation Rate, Unemployment Rate) in the short time interval of three months for the urban areas only in the ‘Current Weekly Status’ (CWS).
• to estimate employment and unemployment indicators in both ‘Usual Status’ (ps+ss) and CWS in both rural and urban areas annually.

On the basis of PLFS, Annual Reports are brought out which covers both rural and urban areas and provides estimates of all important parameters of employment and unemployment in both usual status (ps+ss) and current weekly status (CWS). Seven such PLFS Annual Reports have been released with the latest report brought out based on PLFS conducted during July 2023 - June 2024.

B. Calendar year-wise estimates from PLFS

In the Annual Reports of PLFS, estimates of labour market indicators are presented on the basis of the data collected during the period July of a year to the June of the next year, e.g., in the Annual Report, PLFS, 2023-24 estimates are presented based on data collected during July 2023 - June 2024.

The samples of First Stage Units (FSU) of PLFS canvassed during the period July of one year to   June of the next year are independently drawn for each quarter before commencement of the survey. Since the quarterly samples are drawn independently, estimates of labour force indicators for a calendar year i.e. for the period January – December of a specific year have been obtained by combining the data collected during the four quarters of the calendar year.

The calendar year estimates presented here are based on information collected during first visit of PLFS.

C.    Sample Size

Sample Size for First Visit during January 2024 - December 2024 in rural and urban areas for the estimates of 2024: A total of 12,749 FSUs (6,982 villages and 5,767 urban blocks) were surveyed for canvassing the PLFS schedule (Schedule 10.4). The number of households surveyed was 1,01,957 (55,846 in rural areas and 46,111 in urban areas) and number of persons surveyed was 4,15,549 (2,40,492 in rural areas and 1,75,057 in urban areas).

Annexure-I

Key Employment Unemployment Indicators for 2024

1. LFPR, WPR and UR (in per cent) in usual status (ps+ss) from PLFS conducted during January 2023 – December 2023 and January 2024 – December 2024 for persons aged 15 years and above

 

 

2. LFPR, WPR and UR (in per cent) in Current Weekly Status (CWS) from PLFS conducted during January 2023 – December 2023 and January 2024 – December 2024 for persons aged 15 years and above

Annexure-II

 

Conceptual Framework of key Employment and Unemployment Indicators presented

The key employment and unemployment Indicators presented here are the Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR), Worker Population Ratio (WPR), Unemployment Rate (UR). These estimates have been presented following the Current Weekly Status (CWS) and Usual Status (ps+ss) approach.  Definition of these indicators, and the ‘Usual Status’ and ‘Current Weekly Status’ are as follows:

(a)        Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR): LFPR is defined as the percentage of persons in labour force (i.e. working or seeking or available for work) in the population.

(b)        Worker Population Ratio (WPR): WPR is defined as the percentage of employed persons in the population.

(c)        Unemployment Rate (UR): UR is defined as the percentage of persons unemployed among the persons in the labour force.

(d)       Activity Status- Usual Status: The activity status of a person is determined on the basis of the activities pursued by the person during the specified reference period. When the activity status is determined on the basis of the reference period of last 365 days preceding the date of survey, it is known as the usual activity status of the person.

Principal activity status (ps) - The activity status on which a person spent relatively long time (major time criterion) during 365 days preceding the date of survey, was considered as the usual principal activity status of the person.

Subsidiary economic activity status (ss)- The activity status in which a person in addition to his/her usual principal status, performs some economic activity for 30 days or more for the reference period of 365 days preceding the date of survey, was considered as the subsidiary economic activity status of the person.

Usual status (ps+ss) is determined considering both principal activity status (ps) and subsidiary economic activity status (ss) together.

(e)        Activity Status- Current Weekly Status (CWS): The activity status determined on the basis of a reference period of last 7 days preceding the date of survey is known as the current weekly status (CWS) of the person.

(f)        The Key Employment Unemployment Indicators for 2024 along with the corresponding unit level data is available at the website of the Ministry (https://mospi.gov.in). The key results are given in the statements annexed.

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