Key findings

• Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR) in Current Weekly Status (CWS) among persons of age 15 years and above was 54.8% during May 2025 as compared to 55.6% during April, 2025. LFPR in rural areas was 56.9% and LFPR in urban areas was 50.4% during May, 2025 for persons of the same age group.
• LFPR in CWS for male of age 15 years and above in rural and urban areas were respectively 78.3% and 75.1% during May, 2025 which marked a marginal decline from the corresponding LFPR estimates of 79.0% and 75.3% respectively for rural and urban areas during April, 2025.
• LFPR among female of age 15 years and above for rural areas was 36.9% during May, 2025.
• Worker Population Ratio (WPR) in CWS in rural areas among persons of age 15 years and above was 54.1% during May, 2025. WPR in urban areas among persons of the same age group was 46.9% in May 2025 with the overall WPR at the country level observed as 51.7% during May, 2025 as compared to 52.8% observed during April, 2025.
• WPR for female of age 15 years and above for rural and urban areas were respectively 35.2% and 23.0% in May, 2025 and the overall female WPR of the same age group at the country level was observed as 31.3%.
• Unemployment Rate (UR) in CWS among persons of age 15 years and above has increased to 5.6% in May, 2025 from 5.1% in April, 2025. The female UR was a touch higher at 5.8% compared to the male UR of 5.6% at the country level during May, 2025.
• Key findings and survey methodologies are given at Annexure I and II

Brief on the results of PLFS Monthly Bulletin for May, 2025

• Changes are expected in the monthly PLFS ratios due to increased frequency and seasonal changes but do not necessarily reflect secular trends. There would be attributable to a combination of seasonal, academic and labour market-related factors.
• In rural areas, employment shifted away from the primary sector (agriculture) (from 45.9% in April to 43.5% in May 2025) to secondary and services sectors.
• Decline in female LFPR, especially in rural areas (more than 1 percentage point) due to fewer women working as casual labourers and unpaid helpers.
• Reduction in agricultural activities with the end of Rabi harvest season for both male and female in the rural areas may have brought about the downward shift in number of workers.
• In urban areas, changes were more marginal with slight declines in own account workers and casual labourers, affecting workforce numbers.
• The decline in LFPR and WPR and the rise in UR were driven largely by seasonal agricultural patterns, higher summer temperature experienced in May in some parts of the country due to which physical outdoor work gets limited and movement of some unpaid helpers to domestic chores, especially in the higher income (top 3 decile) rural households.  

Annexure - I

Key Findings of PLFS, Monthly Bulletin (May 2025)

 

1: Labour Force Participation Rate (in per cent) in CWS
sector	survey month	male	female	person
	age group: 15-29 years
rural	April 2025	63.5	23.8	43.4
	May 2025	63.1	22.9	42.7
	age group: 15 years and above
	April 2025	79.0	38.2	58.0
	May 2025	78.3	36.9	56.9
	age group: all age
	April 2025	57.5	28.8	42.9
	May 2025	57.0	27.8	42.2
urban	age group: 15-29 years
	April 2025	59.1	21.5	41.2
	May 2025	58.6	21.3	40.8
	age group: 15 years and above
	April 2025	75.3	25.7	50.7
	May 2025	75.1	25.3	50.4
	age group: all age
	April 2025	58.5	20.5	39.9
	May 2025	58.5	20.2	39.7
rural + urban	age group: 15-29 years
	April 2025	62.0	23.1	42.7
	May 2025	61.6	22.4	42.1
	age group: 15 years and above
	April 2025	77.7	34.2	55.6
	May 2025	77.2	33.2	54.8
	age group: all age
	April 2025	57.8	26.2	42.0
	May 2025	57.5	25.5	41.4

 

2: Worker Population Ratio (in per cent) in CWS
sector	survey month	male	female	person
	age group: 15-29 years
rural	April 2025	55.3	21.2	38.0
	May 2025	54.3	19.9	36.8
	age group: 15 years and above
	April 2025	75.1	36.8	55.4
	May 2025	74.2	35.2	54.1
	age group: all age
	April 2025	54.7	27.7	41.0
	May 2025	53.9	26.5	40.0
urban	age group: 15-29 years
	April 2025	50.2	16.4	34.1
	May 2025	49.4	16.1	33.5
	age group: 15 years and above
	April 2025	71.0	23.5	47.4
	May 2025	70.5	23.0	46.9
	age group: all age
	April 2025	55.1	18.7	37.3
	May 2025	54.9	18.3	36.9
rural + urban	age group: 15-29 years
	April 2025	53.6	19.8	36.8
	May 2025	52.6	18.8	35.8
	age group: 15 years and above
	April 2025	73.7	32.5	52.8
	May 2025	72.9	31.3	51.7
	age group: all age
	April 2025	54.8	24.9	39.8
	May 2025	54.2	24.0	39.0

 

3: Unemployment Rate (in per cent) in CWS
sector	survey month	male	female	person
	age group: 15-29 years
rural	April 2025	13.0	10.7	12.3
	May 2025	14.0	13.0	13.7
	age group: 15 years and above
	April 2025	4.9	3.9	4.5
	May 2025	5.3	4.7	5.1
	age group: all age
	April 2025	4.9	3.8	4.5
	May 2025	5.3	4.7	5.1
urban	age group: 15-29 years
	April 2025	15.0	23.7	17.2
	May 2025	15.8	24.4	17.9
	age group: 15 years and above
	April 2025	5.8	8.7	6.5
	May 2025	6.2	9.1	6.9
	age group: all age
	April 2025	5.8	8.7	6.5
	May 2025	6.2	9.1	6.9
rural + urban	age group: 15-29 years
	April 2025	13.6	14.4	13.8
	May 2025	14.5	16.3	15.0
	age group: 15 years and above
	April 2025	5.2	5.0	5.1
	May 2025	5.6	5.8	5.6
	age group: all age
	April 2025	5.2	5.0	5.1
	May 2025	5.6	5.7	5.6

 

Annexure - II

A. Introduction

Considering the need for generation of high frequency labour force indicators with enhanced coverage the sampling methodology of Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) has been revamped from January 2025. The revamped PLFS design is envisaged to address the following objectives:

• to estimate the key employment and unemployment indicators (viz. Labour Force Participation Rate, Worker   Population Ratio and Unemployment Rate) on a monthly basis for rural and urban areas in the Current Weekly Status (CWS) at all India level
• to extend the coverage of the Quarterly results of PLFS to rural areas and thereby producing quarterly estimates covering both rural and urban parts of India in the Current Weekly Status (CWS)
• to estimate important employment and unemployment indicators in both usual status (ps+ss) and CWS in both rural and urban areas annually.

The monthly results are released in the form of Monthly Bulletins of PLFS. The monthly Bulletin for the month April, 2025 have already been released. The present monthly Bulletin for the month of May, 2025 is the second in the series of monthly Bulletins.

B. Sample Design of PLFS

A rotational panel sampling design has been adopted in PLFS for both rural and urban areas from January, 2025.  In this rotational panel scheme, each selected household is visited four times in four consecutive months – one with first visit schedule and other three with the revisit schedule. The scheme of rotation ensures that 75% of the first-stage sampling units (FSUs) are matched between two consecutive months.

C. Sample Size

At the all-India level, a total number of 7,511 FSUs (4,137 census village or sub-unit as the case may be for rural areas and 3,374 UFS block or sub-unit as the case may be in urban areas) have been surveyed during the quarter May, 2025. The number of households surveyed was 89,372 (49,267 in rural areas and 40,105 in urban areas) and number of persons surveyed was 3,79,600 (2,16,542 in rural areas and 1,63,058 in urban areas)

1. Conceptual Framework of Key Employment and Unemployment Indicators for the Quarterly Bulletin: The Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) gives estimates of key employment and unemployment Indicators like the Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR), Worker Population Ratio (WPR), Unemployment Rate (UR), etc. These indicators, and ‘Current Weekly Status’ are defined as follows:

1. 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.

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

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

4. 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.

The Monthly Bulletin for the month May 2025 is available at the website of the Ministry (https://mospi.gov.in). The key results are given in the statements annexed.

D. Comparability of monthly estimates with previously released estimates of PLFS

The sample design of the Periodic Labour Survey (PLFS) has been revamped from January 2025. As part of revamping of the sample design monthly rotational panel scheme has been implemented for both rural and urban areas wherein each selected household is visited four times in four consecutive months – one with first visit schedule and other three with the revisit schedule in the following three months. The aspects related to the multistage stratified design followed in PLFS like the choice of First stage Units (FSU) to be surveyed, the primary geographical unit (i.e. basic stratum) from which FSUs are selected, stratification rules applied to FSUs and sampling selection method for selecting FSUs have been changed. The number of households to be surveyed within a selected FSU has been increased from 8 to 12 households.

In addition, some changes have also been incorporated in the structure of the Schedule of inquiry. The details of the revamped PLFS sample design and changes made in the Schedule of inquiry have been provided in the PLFS release titled PLFS: Changes in 2025.  Users of PLFS results need to consider the changes implemented in PLFS from January 2025 while comparing PLFS results with estimates released through PLFS publications up to December, 2024. The results of the PLFS post January 2025 thus need to be understood and used in the context with which the sample selection methodology of PLFS has been designed.

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Samrat/Allen

(Release ID: 2136692)