Quarterly Periodic Labour Force Survey

• 30 Oct 2020

Why in News

Recently, the National Statistical Office (NSO) released the quarterly Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) for October-December 2019.

• This dataset differs from the Annual Report of Periodic Labour Force Survey, which covers both rural and urban areas. However, unemployment data for urban areas is released quarterly.

Key Points

• Unemployment Rate:
  
  • It eased in urban areas to 7.9% in October-December 2019 compared to 9.9% in October-December 2018.
    
    • However, state-wise data showed that urban unemployment rate was higher than the national average in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Telangana, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Delhi and Andhra Pradesh.
  • Female unemployment rate decreased to 9.8% in October-December 2019 compared to 12.3% in October-December 2018.
  • Male unemployment rate moderated to 7.3% in October-December 2019 from 9.2% in October-December 2018.
• Labour Force Participation Rate:
  
  • It rose to 37.2% in October-December 2019 from 36.3% in October-December 2018.
• Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS)
  
  • PLFS is India’s first computer-based survey launched by the National Statistical Office (NSO) in 2017.
  • It has been constituted based on the recommendation of a committee headed by Amitabh Kundu.
  • PLFS has two fold objective:
    
    • To estimate the key employment and unemployment indicators (viz. Worker Population Ratio, Labour Force Participation Rate, Unemployment Rate) in the short time interval of three months for the urban areas only in the Current Weekly Status (CWS).
    • To estimate employment and unemployment indicators in both usual status and CWS in both rural and urban areas annually.
  • Before PLFS, the NSSO (previous name of NSO) used to bring the data related to employment and unemployment based on its quinquennial (every 5 year) household socio-economic survey programme.

Key Terms

• Unemployment Rate (UR): UR is defined as the percentage of persons unemployed among the persons in the labour force.
• Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR): LFPR is defined as the percentage of persons in the labour force (i.e. working or seeking or available for work) in the population.
• Worker Population Ratio (WPR): WPR is defined as the percentage of employed persons in the population.
• Activity Status: The activity status of a person is determined on the basis of the activities pursued by the person during the specified reference period.
  
  • Usual Status: The activity status determined on the basis of the reference period of the last 365 days preceding the date of survey, it is known as the usual activity status of the person.
  • Current Weekly Status (CWS): The activity status determined on the basis of a reference period of the last 7 days preceding the date of survey is known as the current weekly status (CWS) of the person.

National Statistical Office

• NSO is the central statistical agency of the Government mandated under the Statistical Services Act 1980 under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.
• It is responsible for the development of arrangements for providing statistical information services to meet the needs of the Government and other users for information on which to base policy, planning, monitoring and management decisions.
  
  • The services include collecting, compiling and disseminating official statistical information.
  • All business operations in NSO are done in compliance with international standards, procedures and best practices.

Source: IE