Labour participation: Revamped PLFS data should help policymaking

The unemployment rate in urban areas stood at 6.5 per cent as against 4.5 per cent in rural areas

The National Statistics Office (NSO) last week released the first monthly bulletin of the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), underscoring that India’s official statistics are beginning to meet the demands of a fast-growing economy. It was argued by many economists and analysts that India needed high-frequency data on employment conditions. In the absence of official data, analysts used data from private sources, which were often questioned for coverage and methodology. Although not directly comparable with earlier labour statistics, owing to a change in methodology, the bulletin showed India’s unemployment rate for people aged 15 and above at 5.1 per cent.