Centre mulling monthly jobs survey, change in PLFS frequency
The government could most likely switch to monthly PLFS updates on urban employment scenario, an official said separately.
In a potentially significant shift that could help better capture labour-market dynamics, the Union government is planning to conduct the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), which gives official employment and unemployment data, more frequently than it currently does, a senior official said.
“Reform initiatives of the ministry for the availability of quality data to meet the dynamically changing data requirements are ongoing. There is a need to revitalise statistical coordination between the Centre and states. There are plans to increase the frequency of surveys like PLFS,” Saurabh Garg, secretary, ministry of statistics and programme implementation (MoSPI), said.
Garg was speaking at the 28th Conference of Central and State Statistical Organisations, a key meet that was inaugurated by Union minister Rao Inderjit Singh, who holds independent charge of MoSPI.
“A conference like this is important in a federal set-up as it brings together all concerned stakeholders of the national statistical system for discussions on improving the quality, timeliness and relevance of data in governance,” the minister said.
The government could most likely switch to monthly PLFS updates on urban employment scenario, an official said separately, requesting anonymity.
Currently, the PLFS issues quarterly data on key indicators but with a lag, including the country’s unemployment rate for urban areas. The quarterly surveys gauge employment based on ‘current weekly status’, or CWS.
A reference period based on CWS means the PLFS considers a person employed if he or she had been engaged in any economic activity in the week prior to the survey.
The PLFS also brings out an annual report on employment and unemployment rates in both urban and rural areas, based on both CWS and usual status, which is a reference period of 12 months.
Since people tend to engage in multiple jobs in a largely informal economy, the usual status is divided into principal status and subsidiary status.
Principal status considers the major portion a person worked in a year, while subsidiary status considers a person employed even if he or she worked for only a month in an entire year.
While there is no official data on monthly unemployment rates, most economists, researchers and policymakers use the monthly unemployment rate issued by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), a private data research firm, which uses an entirely different methodology.
According to the government’s latest quarterly PLFS, unemployment rate in urban areas during January-March 2024 stood at 6.7%, as compared to 6.8% in the same quarter a year ago. The CMIE’s unemployment rate for July stood at 7.88%.