The National Statistics Office (NSO) under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) launched its 25th Quarterly Bulletin of the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), which presents data for the period October – December 2024 (Q3) for the Financial Year (FY) 2024-25.
- As per the data, India’s urban Unemployment Rate (UR) in Current Weekly Status (CWS) among persons aged 15 years and above decreased to 6.4% during Q3 FY25 from 6.5% during Q3 FY24.
- UR among males aged 15 years and above remained the same at 5.8% during Q3 FY24 and Q3 FY25 and the UR among females aged 15 years and above decreased to 8.1% in Q3 FY25 from 8.6 % in Q3 FY24.
Note:
i.UR is defined as the percentage of unemployed persons among the persons in the labour force.
ii.The activity status determined based on a reference period of the last 7 days preceding the date of the survey is known as the CWS of the person.
Key Findings:
Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR): LFPR is defined as the percentage of persons in the labour force (i.e. working or seeking or available for work) in the population.
i.Overall LFPR in urban areas (for individuals aged 15 years and above) increased to 50.4% in Q3 FY25 from 49.9% in Q3 FY24.
ii.Male LFPR increased to 75.4% from 74.1%, and the Female LFPR in urban areas increased slightly to 25.2% from 25.0%, showing an overall rising trend.
Worker Population Ratio (WPR): WPR is defined as the percentage of employed persons in the population.
i.Overall WPR for urban areas among individuals aged 15 and above, increased to 47.2% in Q3 FY25 from 46.6% in Q3 FY24.
ii.Male WPRÂ rose to 70.9% from 69.8%, indicating an increase in male employment and the Female WPR has also increased to 23.2% from 22.9%.
- The workers in the CWS are classified into 3 broad categories according to their status in employment namely: Self-employed, Regular wage/salaried employee, and Casual labour.
PLFS Fieldwork (Q3FY25):
i.For the Q3 FY25, the survey covered 5,742 FSUs (urban sampling units curved out from the Urban Frame Survey) in urban areas across India.
ii.The number of urban households surveyed was 45,074 and the number of persons surveyed was 1,70,487 in urban areas.
- Urban Frame Survey Blocks (UFS) are the smallest area units taken as FSUs in urban areas for PLFS.
About the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS):
The NSO launched the PLFS in April 2017 to provide labour force data at more frequent intervals. Its objectives include:
i.Estimating key employment and unemployment indicators, such as the LFPR, WPR, and UR in urban areas every 3 months under CWS.
About the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI):
Minister of State (MoS) (Independent Charge (IC))- Rao Inderjit Singh (Constituency: Gurgaon, Haryana)
