Periodic Labour Force Survey

The Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) is India’s official household survey for measuring employment and unemployment at regular intervals. Conducted by the National Statistical Office (NSO) under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, it classifies each surveyed person as employed, unemployed or outside the labour force. It provides comparable indicators across population groups and regions.

Purpose and key indicators

Introduced in 2017, PLFS replaced the earlier reliance on employment and unemployment surveys conducted at longer intervals. It produces three principal indicators.

• The Labour Force Participation Rate is the percentage of the population that is working, seeking work or available for work.
• The Worker Population Ratio is the percentage of the population that is employed.
• The Unemployment Rate is the percentage of the labour force that is unemployed.

Reference-period framework

PLFS uses two reference-period approaches because a single period cannot adequately represent both persistent labour-market conditions and short-term fluctuations.

• The usual status approach uses a reference period of 365 days and is suited to assessing relatively long-term employment status.
• Usual principal status is determined by the activity on which a person spent a relatively long time during the reference year, using the major-time criterion.
• A person may also be treated as a usual-status worker when engaged in a subsidiary economic activity for 30 days or more, even if that was not the principal status.
• The Current Weekly Status approach uses the seven days preceding the survey and captures short-term changes in employment and unemployment.
• Under Current Weekly Status, a person who worked for at least one hour on any day of the reference week is classified as employed. A person who did not work but sought or was available for work for at least one hour on any day is classified as unemployed; the remainder are outside the labour force.

Coverage and publication

PLFS covers sampled households in rural and urban India and generates estimates by characteristics such as age, sex, education, industry, occupation and employment status.

• Annual reports provide rural and urban estimates using usual status and Current Weekly Status.
• Higher-frequency estimates rely mainly on Current Weekly Status, which is more responsive to short-term labour-market changes.
• Estimates can differ across the two approaches because their reference periods and classification rules differ.

Uses and limitations

PLFS supports employment policy, macroeconomic assessment and analysis of differences across rural and urban areas and demographic groups. However, it measures a person’s observed labour-market status rather than directly establishing why a job was gained or lost.

• Changes associated with technology, including artificial intelligence, must be studied by combining PLFS occupation and industry data with other evidence on tasks, firms and technology adoption.
• Survey estimates require attention to the selected reference period, population base and indicator definition before comparisons are made.