Unemployment rate declines to 6.8% in January-March 2023: NSO survey

Male unemployment fell to 6 per cent in Q4 from 6.5 per cent the previous quarter, while female unemployment fell to 9.2 per cent from 9.6 per cent in the October-December period

India's unemployment rate declined to 6.8 per cent in January-March 2023 (Q4FY23) from 7.2 per cent in the previous quarter of the same year, according to the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) on Monday.

The unemployment rate was 6.0 per cent for men and 9.2 per cent for women. It was 6.5 per cent and 9.6 per cent for men and women respectively, in October– December 2022.

According to the PLFS report, female labour force participation grew marginally to 22.7 perc ent in Q4FY23, up from 22.3 per cent the previous quarter. The male labour force participation stands at 73.5 per cent.

The worker-population ratio (WPR) also witnessed a slight increase as compared to the December quarter.

The WPR in urban areas for persons aged 15 and above stood at 45.2 per cent in January- March 2023, an increase from 44.7 per cent in Q3. The WPR among men was 45.2 per cent and 20.6 per cent among women. It was 68.6 per cent and 20.2 per cent, respectively, in the third quarter.

NSO launched PLFS in April 2017. Based on the PLFS, a quarterly bulletin is brought out giving estimates of labour force indicators such as unemployment rate, Worker Population Ratio (WPR), Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR), distribution of workers by broad status in employment and industry of work in CWS (Current Weekly Status). 

The estimates of unemployed people in CWS provide an average picture of unemployment in a brief period of seven days during the survey period.

In the CWS approach, a person is considered unemployed if he/she did not work even for one hour on any day during the week but sought or was available for work at least for one hour on any day during the period.

According to CWS, the labour force is the number of people who were either employed or unemployed on average in the week preceding the survey date. The labour force participation rate (LFPR) is defined as the percentage of the population in the labour force.

Seventeen Quarterly Bulletins of PLFS corresponding to the quarter ending December 2018 to the quarter ending December 2022 have already been released. The present Quarterly Bulletin is the eighteenth in the series for the quarter January – March 2023.