Contrary to the rising economic distress on the ground since the last few years, the official press release related to the fourth Annual Report on the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) at first glance seems to give a rosy picture about the employment situation in India.  Defined as the percentage of persons unemployed among the persons in the labour force, the unemployment rate in usual status (principal activity status + subsidiary economic activity status)...

Generally, economists refer to indicators like Worker Population Ratio (WPR), Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR) and Unemployment Rate (UR) in order to assess the extent of joblessness and work related precarity at a particular period of time in a certain geographical area. However, there are other indicators too, which can help in understanding the job situation, livelihoods security and vulnerability of workers in a better way such as 'percentage distribution...

-The Indian Express A comprehensive employment policy combined with an industrial policy is necessary to address the crisis. A report in this paper (IE, November 1) on various employment estimates for 2017-18, based on the PLFS (periodic labour force survey) data, has received considerable attention. We have received several queries from policy makers regarding the differences in our employment estimates with studies by Laveesh Bhandari and Amaresh Dubey (BD), and Himanshu...

-Newsclick.in Women’s work participation has dramatically declined, unemployment is at an all-time high and they often get half the wage of what men get for same work, shows the latest labour force survey report. The recently released Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) for 2017-18 reveals a striking decline in women’s participation in the workforce. Only about 22% of women of working age (defined as 15 years of age or more) were gainfully...

In a recent blog post, Columbia University professor Arvind Panagariya mentions that the critics of the present Prime Minister of India failed to underscore ‘employment rate’ -- flip side of unemployment rate -- that stood at nearly 94 percent according to the report on Periodic Labour Force Survey 2017-18. A recent article by Dr. Vikas Rawal and Prachi Bansal, however, points out that in order to understand the problem of joblessness...