NSO Periodic Labour Force Survey – December 2021

The National Statistical Office recently released its findings of the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS). This is a Quarterly bulletin and is tenth is the series. This is for January to March 2021.

What are the key findings of 2021 survey?

• The unemployment rate of people in the age of 15 years and above was 10.3%.
• The unemployment rate of urban females was 11.8% in 2021. It was 13.1% in 2020.
• The unemployment rate of urban males was 8.6% in 2021. It was 9.5% in 2020.
• The Worker Population Ratio in urban was at 43.1%. It was 43.7% in 2020.
• The Labour Force Participation Rate in urban areas was 47.5%. It was 47.3% in 2020.

What are the objectives of Periodic Labour Force Survey?

The main object is to estimate employment and unemployment indicators. This includes labour force participation rate, worker population ratio, unemployment rate, etc. This is done in two ways. They are

• Collecting “Current Weekly Status”
• Collecting data on “Usual Status”

This is done in both urban and rural areas annually. In CWS approach, the person is considered unemployed if he or she did not work for even for one hour in the week.

What is “Current Weekly Status” and “Usual Status” in PLFS?

• The Current Weekly Status is the employment status of the individuals in the last seven days preceding the date of survey.
• The Usual Status captures long term unemployment in the country. Here the status of the person in 365 days is decided based on his activity for longer period of time. If a person is employed for seven months employed and three months unemployed, then his usual status is “Employed”. If a person is three months employed and seven months unemployed, then his usual status is “Unemployed”.

What details are provided by quarterly PLFS bulletin?

The quarterly bulletins of PLFS provides worker Population Ratio, Unemployment Rate, Labour Force Participation Rate.

• Labour Force Participation Rate: Percentage of persons working or seeking or available for work.
• Worker Population Ratio: Percentage of employed persons in the population
• Unemployment Rate: Percentage of persons unemployed among the persons in labour force.
• Labour Force: The Labour force is the part of the population that supplies labour for the production of goods and services.

About PLFS

The survey was started in 2017. So far ten bulletins have been released. They are December 2018; March, June, September and December 2019; March, June, September and December 2020. The NSO had also released three annual reports. They are for the period 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20. In every year, the survey was started in June and ended in July of the consecutive year.

Month: Current Affairs - December, 2021