LABOUR FORCE SURVEY (PLFS)

• Recently, the National Statistical Office (NSO) released the quarterly bulletin of Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) for October-December 2020.
• This dataset differs from the Annual Report of Periodic Labour Force Survey, which covers both rural and urban areas. Unemployment data for urban areas is released quarterly.
• NSO is the central statistical agency of the Government mandated under the Statistical Services Act 1980 under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.

Important points:

• The Unemployment rate for ages 15 and above in urban areas rose to 10.3% in October-December 2020 as compared to 7.9% in the corresponding months a year ago.
• The labour force participation rate for ages 15 and above in urban areas was 47.3% in October-December quarter of 2020, down from 47.8% in the same period a year ago.
• The Worker Population Ratio for ages 15 and above in urban areas was 42.4% in October-December quarter of 2020, down from 44.1% in the same period a year ago.
• Considering the importance of availability of labour force data at more frequent time intervals, National Statistical Office (NSO) launched Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) in April 2017.
• 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.
• Three Annual Reports of PLFS corresponding to the periods July 2017 – June 2018, July 2018 – June 2019 and July 2019 – June 2020 have been released.
• Nine Quarterly Bulletins of PLFS corresponding to the quarters covered during the period December 2018 to December 2020 have been released.

Key Terminologies

• 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.
• Unemployment Rate (UR): UR is defined as the percentage of persons unemployed among the persons in the labour force.
• The activity status of a person is determined on the basis of the activities pursued by the person during a specified reference period.
• The activity status determined on the basis of the reference period of the last 365 days preceding the date of survey, is known as the usual activity status of the person.
• 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.

SOURCE: THE HINDU,THE ECONOMIC TIMES,MINT