India’s unemployment rate stood at 5.1 per cent in April for persons aged 15 years and above, with the rate for males at 5.2 per cent and for females at 5.0 per cent, the first monthly bulletin of Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) released on Thursday by the National Statistics Office (NSO) under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation showed.
In urban areas, the unemployment rate stood at 6.5 per cent, while in rural areas, the unemployment rate for persons aged 15 years and above was recorded to be 4.5 per cent. Females saw a higher unemployment rate at 8.7 per cent than 5.8 per cent for males in urban areas. In rural areas, however, the unemployment rate for females was lower at 3.9 per cent than 4.9 per cent for males in April. Experts said the rural-urban divide is indicative of the job creation pressures in the urban areas.
The monthly estimates are based on current weekly status (CWS) approach, which measures activity status of persons surveyed based on reference period of last seven days preceding the date of survey.
Youth unemployment rate, female LFPR
The unemployment rate for youth, aged 15-29 years, stood at 13.8 per cent in April, with the rate in urban areas at 17.2 per cent and at 12.3 per cent in rural areas. Overall, the youth unemployment rate for females was higher at 14.4 per cent than for males at 13.6 per cent. In urban areas also, the youth unemployment rate was higher for females at 23.7 per cent than for males at 15.0 per cent. However, in rural areas, the youth unemployment rate for females was lower at 10.7 per cent than for males at 13.0 per cent. “This could be due to (a) higher female preferences for education in urban areas than rural areas and (b) low employment opportunities in urban areas than rural areas for females,” Paras Jasrai, Economist and Associate Director, India Ratings and Research said.
The Labour Force Participation Rate for persons aged 15 years and above in the country stood at 55.6 per cent in April, with the rate for urban areas at 50.7 per cent and for rural areas at 58.0 per cent. The gender-wise split showed the low labour force participation rate of females at 34.2 per cent as against 77.7 per cent for males.
The female LFPR was lower for urban areas at 25.7 per cent than 38.2 per cent in rural areas for the age group 15 years and above. In comparison, the male LFPR stood at 75.3 per cent in urban areas and 79.0 per cent in rural areas.
Labour force participation rate 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 and therefore, includes both ‘employed’ and ‘unemployed’ persons. Under the CWS approach, labour force refers to the number of persons either employed or unemployed on an average in a week before the date of survey.
Worker Population Ratio
The Worker Population Ratio (WPR), which indicates the employment rate, was recorded at 52.8 per cent for persons of age 15 years and above in April. The WPR for persons aged 15 years and above stood at 47.4 per cent in urban areas and 55.4 per cent in rural areas.
Under the CWS, the WPR refers to the number of persons who worked for at least one hour on any day during the days preceding the date of survey.
As per the gender-wise breakup, WPR for females was 23.5 per cent in urban areas and 36.8 per cent in rural areas. For males, the WPR stood at 71 per cent in urban areas and 75.1 per cent in rural areas.
Sample size, revamped design
Under the revamped PLFS, 3.80 lakh persons and 89,434 households were surveyed for the monthly bulletin of April. The sample design of the PLFS has been revamped from January 2025, under which there is a monthly rotational panel scheme for both rural and urban areas wherein each selected household is visited four times in four consecutive months – one with first visit schedule and other three with the revisit schedule in the following three months.
In addition, some changes have also been incorporated in the structure of the ‘schedule of inquiry’. New questions have been included in the survey about additional details about education; nature of certifying body for vocational / technical training; land possessed and land leased out; and households’ usual monthly income from rent, pension, interest and remittances.
The revamped PLFS will also see the reporting period being tweaked to a calendar year basis, beginning January 2025 instead of July-June earlier. The April bulletin released on Thursday was the first monthly bulletin of PLFS, while the first quarterly bulletin of PLFS covering both rural and urban areas for April-June is slated to be released in August.
Earlier, the MoSPI released rural PLFS data on an annual basis and urban PLFS data on a quarterly basis along with an annual report which combines data for both urban and rural on an annual basis. Other employment data such as the survey by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) comes out on a weekly and monthly basis.
