The unemployment rate — defined as the percentage of people in the labour force aged 15 years and above, who are jobless — stood at 5.1 per cent in April, according to the first-ever monthly bulletin of the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) released by the National Statistics Office on Thursday.
The PLFS was earlier a quarterly and annual publication. It was revamped in January 2025 to a monthly publication, considering the need for the generation of high-frequency data on labour.
The unemployment rate in urban India in April was estimated at 6.5 per cent, while in rural India it was at 4.5 per cent. Joblessness among those in the age group of 15-29 was 13.8 per cent across the country.
The bulletin uses two more parameters: Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR), which refers to the percentage of persons in the labour force (i.e. working or seeking or available for work) in the population, and Worker Population Ratio (WPR), defined as the proportion of those who are employed among the total population.
LFPR during April was 42 per cent. The parameter was slightly lower in urban India at 39.9 per cent compared with that in rural India at 42.9 per cent. WPR was 39.8 per cent during April.
“The release of India’s first monthly labour force data is a transformative move towards real-time workforce insights. This more frequent data enables agile, evidence-based decision-making for both policymakers and employers,” Nagesh Bailur, CFO of talent company Randstad India, told The Telegraph.
“The data also highlights critical disparities such as the LFPR of 38.2 per cent among rural women (above 15 years) compared with 79.0 per cent among rural men—underscoring the urgent need for targeted skilling, access and inclusion strategies,” he said.
“The overall employment scenario appears to be stabilising, with fewer people facing difficulties in securing jobs compared with earlier periods. Ensuring sustained progress will require continued policy support, fostering an environment where workforce participation remains strong and employment opportunities continue to expand,” said Kartik Narayan, CEO-staffing, TeamLease Services.
Key changes
Notably, a key change in the revamped PLFS has been an increase in the sample size and sample design to provide more reliable estimates.
“The number of households surveyed was 89,434 (49,323 in rural areas and 40,111 in urban areas) and the number of persons surveyed was 3,80,838 (2,17,483 in rural areas and 1,63,355 in urban areas),” the monthly bulletin said.
The NSO, however, has given a disclaimer that PLFS results for April need to be seen in the context of the changes implemented from January, which were not there in the estimates released up to December 2024.