Govt to release first monthly labour force data for April 2025 this month

The National Statistics Office under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation will start releasing the monthly employment numbers in the form of Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) from this month, starting with the data for April 2025.

Besides, PLFS' quarterly numbers will now be brought out separately for rural, urban as well as the combined figures for rural and urban areas, according to a ministry statement.

At present, the labour force survey is released on a quarterly as well as annual basis.

The first monthly bulletin of PLFS for April 2025 is scheduled to be released in May this year, the statement said.

The first quarterly bulletin of PLFS covering both rural and urban areas for the quarter April-June, 2025 is slated to be released in August 2025, it stated.

"National Statistics Office (NSO), MOSPI continues its endeavour to enhance the scope, relevance and coverage of the surveys conducted by NSS. Key labour force indicators from PLFS at the all-India level will now be released on monthly basis and the PLFS quarterly results will now be brought out for rural, urban and rural and urban areas combined," it said.

With an aim to enhance the surveys of NSS, the sampling design of PLFS has been revamped from January 2025 to address the requirement of high-frequency labour market indicators, it said.

The revamped PLFS is envisaged to estimate the key employment and unemployment indicators, including labour force participation rate, worker population ratio, unemployment rate, on a monthly basis for rural and urban areas at all-India level in the Current Weekly Status (CWS).

The new PLFC will extend the coverage of the quarterly figures for rural areas and thereby producing quarterly estimates at the country level as well as for major states.

It will also estimate important employment and unemployment indicators in both usual status (ps+ss) and CWS in both rural and urban areas annually.

Usual Status (ps+ss) and Current Weekly Status (CWS) refers to frameworks for determining activity status of person surveyed based on reference periods of last 365 days and last seven days preceding the date of survey, respectively.

PLFS was launched in 2017 essentially to address the requirement of generating estimate of the key employment and unemployment indicators quarterly for the urban areas only in the Current Weekly Status (CWS) and providing important employment and unemployment indicators in both usual status (ps+ss) and CWS in both rural and urban areas annually.

Quarterly numbers have been brought out in the form of PLFS quarterly bulletins.

Till 2024, twenty-five quarterly bulletins of PLFS corresponding to the quarter ending December 2018 to quarter ending December 2024 have been released.

The annual figures have been released in the form of PLFS Annual Report covering the survey period from July of a specific year to June of the following year along with the unit level survey data.

Seven such annual reports covering both rural and urban areas and giving estimates of all important parameters of employment and unemployment in both usual status (ps+ss) and current weekly status (CWS) have been released spanning the period from July 2017 to June 2024.

In the revamped PLFS sample design, district has been made the primary geographical unit, called basic stratum within a state/UT. In the remaining parts, NSS region has been made the basic stratum. This will ensure sample observations from most of the districts and improve representativeness of the estimates, the ministry said.