India, Aug. 18 -- The Government of India issued the following news release:
A. Introduction
Considering the need to generate high-frequency labour force indicators with wider coverage, the sampling methodology of the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) was revamped from January 2025. The redesigned PLFS aims to achieve the following objectives:
To generate key employment and unemployment indicators - namely Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR), Worker Population Ratio (WPR) and Unemployment Rate (UR) - every month for both rural and urban areas at the all-India level under the Current Weekly Status (CWS).
To extend the Quarterly PLFS results to rural areas, thereby producing quarterly estimates of labour market indicators for both rural and urban India under the CWS framework.
To provide annual estimates of key employment and unemployment indicators in both usual status (ps+ss) and Current Weekly Status (CWS) for rural as well as urban areas.
Earlier PLFS Quarterly Bulletins, released up to December 2024, presented labour market indicators only for urban areas. The current Bulletin for April-June 2025 marks the first in the series to provide estimates for both rural and urban areas. In this Quarterly Bulletin, for the first time, efforts have been made to provide estimates of the number of workers in absolute terms.
This Quarterly Bulletin presents estimates of key labour force indicators-Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR), Worker Population Ratio (WPR), Unemployment Rate (UR), and the distribution of workers by broad employment status and industry of work-in the Current Weekly Status (CWS), separately for rural and urban areas at the all-India level. In addition, state-level estimates of LFPR, WPR, and UR in CWS are also provided for selected States.
In the Monthly Bulletins of PLFS, estimates of Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR), Worker Population Ratio (WPR), and Unemployment Rate (UR) at the all-India level are presented under the Current Weekly Status (CWS), disaggregated by gender, sector, and broad age-groups.
The monthly Bulletin for the months April 2025, May 2025 and June 2025 have already been released. The present monthly Bulletin for the month of July 2025 is the fourth in the series of Monthly Bulletins.
Key findings: Quarterly Bulletin April -June 2025
The Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR) in Current Weekly Status (CWS) for persons aged 15 years and above was 55.0% during April-June 2025, with 57.1% in rural areas and 50.6% in urban areas.
LFPR in CWS for male of age 15 years and above in rural and urban areas were 78.4% and 75.1% respectively during April - June, 2025. LFPR among female of age 15 years and above for rural areas was 37.0% during the quarter April - June, 2025.
Worker Population Ratio (WPR) in CWS among persons of age 15 years and above was 54.4% in rural areas. WPR in urban areas was 47.1% among persons of the same age group with the overall WPR at the country level observed as 52.0% during the quarter April - June, 2025.
WPR for female of age 15 years and above for rural and urban areas were 35.4% and 23.3%, respectively during April - June 2025 and the overall female WPR of the same age group at the country level was observed as 31.6%.
In terms of employment status, self-employment dominated in rural areas (55.3% of men and 71.6% of women), while regular wage/salaried employment was predominant in urban areas (47.5% of men and 55.1% of women).
By industry of work, the agriculture sector engaged the majority of rural workers (44.6% of men and 70.9% of women), while the tertiary sector was the largest source of employment in urban areas (60.6% of men and 64.9% of women). On average, 56.4 crore persons (aged 15 years and above) were employed in the country during this quarter, of which 39.7 crore were men and 16.7 crore were women.
Unemployment Rate (UR) in CWS for both males and females of age 15 years and above was recorded as 5.4% during the quarter April - June 2025.
The overall rural UR was lower at 4.8% compared to the UR of 6.8% observed for the urban areas in April - June 2025 quarter.
Key findings: Monthly Bulletin July 2025
During the month of July 2025, LFPR in CWS among persons of age 15 years and above was 54.9% as compared to 54.2% during June 2025.
During July 2025, LFPR in rural areas and urban areas was 56.9% and 50.7%, respectively for persons of the same age group.
LFPR in CWS for rural male of age 15 years and above was 78.1% whereas the LFPR for urban male of the same age group was 75.1% during July, 2025.
LFPR among rural female of the same age group increased to 36.9% during July 2025 as compared to 35.2% reported during June 2025.
During the month of July 2025, WPR in CWS in rural areas among persons of age 15 years and above increased to 54.4% from WPR of 53.3% observed in June 2025. WPR in urban areas has marked marginal increase to 47.0% in July 2025 from 46.8% in June 2025 for persons of the same age group.
WPR for rural female of age 15 years and above was 35.5% in July 2025 as compared to 23.5% observed for urban female. The overall female WPR of the same age group at the country level was 31.6% in July 2025.
UR in CWS among persons of age 15 years and above declined to 5.2% in July 2025 from 5.6% in June 2025.
Table Omitted (The document can be viewed at https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2157501 )
Disclaimer: Curated by HT Syndication.
