Periodic Labour Force Survey: Quarterly Bulletin

News: The National Statistical Office (NSO), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation has released the Quarterly Bulletin for the period January- March, 2019. It presents estimates of labour force indicators, for urban areas.

Facts:

Key takeaways:

•  Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR) in Current Weekly Status for all ages is estimated as 36% in the urban areas during January-March 2019 as compared to 35.6% during April- June 2018.
• The LFPR for men was estimated to be 56.2 per cent, while for women it was at 15 per cent in the urban areas during the January-March 2019 period.
• Unemployment Rate (UR) in current weekly status in urban areas for all ages has been estimated as 9.3% during January-March 2019 as compared to 9.8% during April- June 2018.

Additional Information:

Labour Force:

• Labour force refers to the part of the population which supplies or offers to supply labour for pursuing economic activities for the production of goods and services. It includes both ‘employed’ and ‘unemployed’ persons.

Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR)

• The LFPR is defined as the percentage of population in the labour-force. Labour-force according to current weekly status (CWS) is the number of persons either employed or unemployed on an average in a week of 7 days preceding the date of survey.

Unemployment Rate:

• The unemployment rate is defined as the percentage of unemployed persons in the labour force. According to the current weekly status (CWS) approach, a person is considered as unemployed, if in a week if he/she did not work even for 1 hour during the week. However, he/she sought or was available for work for at least 1 hour during  the week.

Periodic Labour Force Survey

• National  Statistical  Office (NSO), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, launched  Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) on April 2017.
• The National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) conducts the survey.
• The survey seeks to generate quarterly reports on Labour Force Indicators such as Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR), Worker Population Ratio (WPR) and Unemployment Rate (UR) in urban areas and an annual report for rural India.
• The periodic labour force survey had replaced the Annual Employment Unemployment Survey in 2017 on the recommendations of the Task Force on Employment chaired by Dr. Arvind Panagariya, then Vice-Chairman of NITI Aayog.