14-05-2025
Govt will now publish key labour force survey data monthly, not quarterly
New Delhi: Key indicators from the periodic labour force survey (PLFS), previously released quarterly, will now be published monthly starting with the April 2025 bulletin due in May, the ministry of statistics and programme implementation (MoSPI) announced on Wednesday.
The update will enable monthly estimation of key labour market indicators—the labour force participation rate (LFPR), worker population ratio (WPR), and unemployement rate(UR)—at the all-India level using the current weekly status (CWS) approach, thus providing timely data to support policy interventions, it said.
These indicators provide key insights into the health of the labour market. LFPR measures the percentage of the working-age population that's either employed or seeking work, WPR shows the proportion employed, and UR measures the percentage of the labour force that's actively seeking work but is unemployed.
The PLFS quarterly results will also be extended to cover rural areas, providing a more comprehensive view of employment and unemployment trends across the country, with the April-June 2025 data set to be released in August, the ministry said.
Typically, the CWS captures a person's employment status over the seven days preceding the survey, while the usual status reflects their activity over a 365-day reference period.
The ministry said as part of strengthening the National Sample Survey (NSS) system, the PLFS sampling design has been revamped from January 2025 to provide high-frequency labour market indicators with expanded coverage.
The revamped PLFS aims to deliver monthly CWS-based labour market indicators at the national level, extend quarterly estimates to rural areas, and provide annual indicators in both usual status and CWS for rural and urban areas, it added.
The ministry also announced a shift to a calendar-year format for annual employment data from the previous July-June cycle. Starting this year, PLFS results will follow the calendar year, it said.
To improve data reliability, the PLFS sample size will increase significantly from 102,400 to 272,304 households, with the new methodology enabling district-level representation in employment statistics for the first time, it added.
