India, March 27 -- The Government of India has issued a release:
Snapshot
The Annual Report of PLFS, 2025, is available on the website of the Ministry (https://www.mospi.gov.in).
Scan the QR code below to access MoSPI Publications/ Reports
The unit-level data pertaining to the first visit have been disseminated through the Ministry's microdata portal (https://microdata.gov.in/NADA/index.php/home).
Key findings
1. Stable Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR) for persons of age 15 years and above
The rural male labour force participation remained strong at 80.5% while rural female participation held steady at 45.9%, sustaining the gains achieved in previous years. Both male and female labour force participation rates (based on usual status (ps+ss)) in 2025 remained broadly consistent with the levels observed in 2024 in urban areas.
2. Worker Population Ratio (WPR) for persons of age 15 years and above remains sustained
The WPR (according to usual status (ps+ss)) shows a broad stability in 2025 compared with 2024. In 2025, WPR for rural male remained robust at 78.4%, while WPR for rural female held steady at 44.9%, sustaining the significant gains made since 2022. The overall urban WPR maintained nearly at 50.0%.
3. Unemployment Rates (UR) reflect stability and improvement for persons of age 15 years and above
The UR estimates (in usual status (ps+ss)) indicate sustained progress in reducing unemployment across sectors and genders. Overall rural unemployment rates in 2025 stood at 2.4%, showing strong rural labour absorption. The female unemployment rate remained low at 2.1% lower than the male UR in rural areas which stood at 2.6%. The male and female unemployment eased to 4.2% and 6.4%, respectively in urban areas contributed marginal decrease in overall urban UR to 4.8%.
4. Increase in proportion of workers with regular wage/ salary employment
The percentage distribution of workers (in usual status) by status in employment indicates a modest shift in the composition of employment in 2025. The share of self-employment declined slightly from 57.5% in 2024 to 56.2% in 2025 at the overall level, with reductions observed for both male (52.9% to 52.0%) and female (66.5% to 64.2%). This moderation has been accompanied by an increase in the share of regular wage/salaried employment, which rose from 22.4% to 23.6%; the increase is visible for both male (25.4% to 26.5%) and female (16.6% to 18.2%). The share of workers engaged in casual labour has remained broadly stable at around one-fifth of total employment (20.0% in 2024 to 20.2% in 2025), with only marginal variations across gender.
5. Manufacturing and service sectors witnessed enhanced worker participation
The percentage distribution of workers (in usual status) by industry of work reflects a broadly stable sectoral composition in 2025 with some notable shifts. Agriculture continues to account for the largest share of employment, though it has decreased from 44.8% in 2024 to 43.0% in 2025. The share of employment in construction has decreased marginally (12.3% to 12.0%), while manufacturing has seen improvement from 11.6% to 12.1%. Other services have also recorded an increase (12.2% to 13.1%).
6. Earnings of female workers have seen a notable shift
Earnings of workers have shown a notable improvement in recent years across categories, with gains observed for both male and female in nominal terms. In regular wage/salaried employment, average earnings for male increased from Rs.22,891 in 2024 to Rs.24,217 in 2025 (about 5.8% growth), while for female, earnings rose from Rs.17,126 to Rs.18,353 (about 7.2% growth).
In self-employment, male earnings increased from Rs.16,893 in 2024 to Rs.17,914 in 2025 (around 6.0% growth), while female earnings rose from Rs.5,861 to Rs.6,374 (around 8.8% growth), reflecting stronger growth among female.
For casual labour (other than public works), male earnings remained stable (Rs.456 in 2024 and Rs.455 in 2025), while female earnings improved from Rs.299 to Rs.315 (about 5.4% growth).
7. Average number of years in formal education
For persons aged 15 years and above, the average number of years in formal education stands at 10.0 years at the all-India level in 2025, with male at 10.2 years and female at 9.9 years. Urban areas reported higher average number of years in formal education (11.2 years for male and 10.9 years for female) compared to rural areas (9.6 years and 9.2 years, respectively).
A similar pattern is observed for persons aged 25 years and above, where the overall average is 9.8 years, with male at 10.0 years and female at 9.5 years in formal education. Urban attainment remains higher (11.2 years for male and 10.8 year for female), while rural levels stand at 9.3 years and 8.6 years, respectively.
Endnote: A brief about the objective, sample size, changes in sample design, conceptual framework and comparability of results of the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS):
Considering the need to generate high-frequency labour force indicators with enhanced coverage, the sampling methodology of the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) has been revamped from January 2025. Further, to keep uniformity with the international practice of reporting labour force indicators, the survey period of PLFS has been shifted from the July-June cycle (i.e., agricultural year) to the January-December cycle (i.e., calendar year) from 2025. The revamped PLFS design is envisaged to address the following objectives:
Seven Annual Reports based on Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) covering both rural and urban areas, giving estimates of all important parameters of employment and unemployment in both usual status (ps+ss) and current weekly status (CWS) have been released. These seven Annual Reports are brought out based on data collected in PLFS during the survey period July 2017-June 2018, July 2018-June 2019, July 2019-June 2020, July 2020-June 2021, July 2021-June 2022, July 2022-June 2023 and July 2023-June 2024. Additionally, key employment and unemployment indicators for the calendar years 2021 to 2024 were also released at the all-India level.
Now the Annual Report, PLFS 2025, is being brought out by NSO as the first comprehensive report based on the calendar year (January 2025-December 2025) as the survey period.
Sample Size for First Visit during January 2025 - December 2025 in rural and urban areas for the Annual Report: Out of the total number of 22,692 FSUs (12,504 villages and 10,188 UFS blocks or sub units) allotted for the survey at the all-India level during January-December 2025, a total of 22,594 FSUs (12,441 villages and 10,153 urban blocks) were surveyed for canvassing the PLFS schedule (Schedule 10.4). The number of households surveyed was 2,70,472 (1,48,718 in rural areas and 1,21,754 in urban areas) and number of persons surveyed was 11,48,634 (6,56,160 in rural areas and 4,92,474 in urban areas). Among the persons surveyed, total number of persons of age 15 years and above was 8,91,266 (4,96,186 in rural areas and 3,95,080 in urban areas).
To achieve the objectives, the sampling design of PLFS has been revised with effect from January 2025. The revamped design has been introduced to enhance the frequency and representativeness of key labour market indicators. The salient features of the revised sampling design, as adopted from January 2025, are presented below:
The details of the revamped PLFS sample design have been provided in the PLFS release titled PLFS: Changes in 2025
(https://www.mospi.gov.in/sites/default/files/publication_reports/PLFS_Changes-in-2025_rev.pdf ).
D. Conceptual Framework of Key Indicators
The Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) gives estimates of Key employment and unemployment Indicators like Labour Force Participation Rates (LFPR), Worker Population Ratio (WPR), Unemployment Rate (UR), etc. These indicators, and the 'Usual Status' and 'Current Weekly Status' are defined as follows:
From 2025, the sampling design of the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) has been modified with the objective of generating high-frequency estimates of key labour force indicators. The revised design involves changes in sample allocation, sample selection and rotational panel to support the production of high-frequency estimates. As a result of these methodological changes, the annual estimates presented in this report are derived from a sampling framework that differs from that used in earlier PLFS annual estimates. Although the concepts, definitions and coverage of labour force indicators remain broadly unchanged, the change in sampling design and estimation procedure may influence the level of the estimates. Consequently, the annual estimates for 2025 may not be strictly comparable with those presented in the previous annual reports of the Periodic Labour Force Survey or calendar year-wise results derived from unit-level data for the years 2022 to 2024 presented in the report. Users of PLFS results need to consider the changes implemented in PLFS from January 2025 while comparing PLFS results with estimates released through PLFS publications up to December 2024. The results of the PLFS post-January 2025 thus need to be understood and used in the context in which the PLFS sample selection methodology was designed.
Samrat
Disclaimer: Curated by HT Syndication.
