Periodic Labour Force Survey 2021 - 2022
India, 2021 - 2022
Get MicrodataIdentification
IND_2021_PLFS_v01_M
Periodic Labour Force Survey 2021 - 2022
PLFS 2021-22
| Name | Country code |
|---|---|
| India | IND |
Labor Force Survey [hh/lfs]
The employment and unemployment surveys undertaken by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) are the primary source of statistics on labour force, activity participation of the population and structure of employment and unemployment in the country. The architecture of these surveys provides the measurement of labour force indicators in cross classification of age, gender, education, industry, occupation, time disposition, mobility and wages. After the initial experimentations for evolving the concepts and methods of various measurements to capture the diverse facets of labour force, the employment and unemployment surveys have become the integral part of quinquennial household socio-economic survey programme of NSSO since it’s 27th Round (1972-73).
The objective of PLFS is primarily on two aspects. The first is to measure the dynamics in labour force participation and employment status in the short time interval of three months for the urban areas only in the Current Weekly Status (CWS). Thus, in every quarter, PLFS brings out the level and change estimates of the key labour force indicators in CWS viz. Worker Population Ratio (WPR), Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR), Unemployment Rate (UR). Secondly, for both rural and urban areas, level estimates of all important parameters in both usual status and CWS are brought out annually.
Sample survey data [ssd]
Households and Individuals
Scope
The survey covered the following topics:
- Identification of household
- Household characteristics
- Demographic particulars of household members
- Usual principal activity particulars of household members
- Usual subsidiary economic activity particulars of household members
- Current weekly activity particulars of the household members during the week
Coverage
The survey covers the whole of the Indian Union except the villages in Andaman and Nicobar Islands which remain extremely difficult to access throughout the year. 12800 FSUs (7024 villages and 5776 UFS blocks) are covered annually at all-India level.
Producers and sponsors
| Name | Affiliation |
|---|---|
| National Statistics Office of India (NSSO) | Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation |
| Name |
|---|
| Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation |
Sampling
A rotational panel sampling design are used in urban area. The rotational scheme will be of two years duration to accommodate the changes in the urban frame in the intercensal period; in the sense that the sampling frames for both rural and urban areas remain unchanged for every two-year duration. In this rotational panel scheme each selected household in urban areas are visited four times - one with first visit schedule and other three with revisit schedule. The estimates can be given for successive quarters without any break in the series (starting from the fifth quarter), ensuring a 75% matching between consecutive quarters. Regression based estimates will not be generated. Instead, usual traditional design-based estimates will be generated. The proposed design aims at generating quarterly estimates of level and change parameters of some important labour force indicators (LFPR, WPR & UR) based on CWS data in urban areas and annual estimates of level parameters based on usual status for both rural and urban areas in the line of employment & unemployment survey of NSS quinquennial round.
Rotational panel design for urban areas
i. The initial rotational panel is for two years, where only 25% FSUs of urban annual allocation are covered in the first quarter (Panel P11) with detail listing and canvassing of visit 1 schedule in the selected households; where Pij indicates the panel belonging to jth quarter of the ith two-year period of rotation.
ii. Another 25% FSUs is covered in the second quarter (Panel P12) for taking up visit 1 schedule and revisit schedule is administered in the selected households of Panel P11.
iii. A new panel P13 of 25% FSUs are surveyed in third quarter with visit 1 schedule and revisit schedules will be administered in the households of panels P11 & P12.
iv. In the fourth quarter, households of panels P11, P12 & P13 are surveyed with revisit schedule and a new panel P14 with 25% FSUs for visit 1 schedule.
v. In the subsequent quarters of second year 75% FSUs (3 panels - P12, P13 & P14) are common and an earlier panel (P11) is replaced by a new panel (P15) for canvassing visit 1 schedule. This continues till 8th quarter.
vi. All the FSUs of the panels P11, P12, ...., P18 (each of which is with 25% of FSUs) are selected before commencement of survey in the first quarter.
vii. At the end of the second year of each two-year duration, updated frame is used for both rural and urban areas.
viii. FSUs of another set of panels P21, P22, ..., P28 selected from the updated frame is made ready before commencement of first quarter of third year (first quarter of the second two-year duration). These panels P21 to P28 take care of the changes in the urban frame during the intercensal period.
ix. In the ninth quarter (first quarter of the second two-year duration), panel P21 selected from the updated frame is introduced and the panels P16, P17 and P18 of the old frame is surveyed.
x. This scheme continue for another 2 years with the introduction of panels P22 to P28 each in one quarter for the subsequent 7 quarters till the end of the fourth year (second year of the two-year period).
xi. This scheme of rotation of panels enable generation of estimates of change parameters with 75% matching and 25% of unmatched samples from fifth quarter onwards.
xii. One of the main advantages of this plan of rotation is that there will not be any break in the series of estimates of the change parameters starting from 5th quarter.
xiii. Since major changes in the rural-urban frame occurs in the Census years (say for the year 2023-24), provision is to be made to generate estimates without break in the series of estimates considering panels from pre and post-census frames.
Rural samples
For rural areas, samples for all the 8 quarters are selected before commencement of survey for each two-year period, while the frame remains same for this duration. In each quarter, only 25% FSUs of annual allocation (as is done in each sub-round of NSS rounds) are covered in rural areas so that independent estimates can be generated for each quarter. For this purpose, quarterly allocation will be multiple of 2 for drawing interpenetrating sub-samples.
State/UT level sample size is allocated between two sectors in proportion to population as per Census 2011 with double weightage to urban sector in general. Within each sector of a State/UT, the respective sample size is allocated to the different strata (in the case of urban areas) and strata/ sub-strata (in the case of rural areas) in proportion to the population as per Census 2011. Urban allocations at stratum level are adjusted to multiples of 8 with a minimum sample size of 8 (for 4 panels, each of size at least 2). Rural allocation for each stratum will also be multiple of 8 with minimum sample size of 8 (for 4 quarters, each of size 2). For special stratum formed in rural areas of Nagaland as discussed in para 1.4.8, 16 FSUs are allocated.
It may be noted that quarterly allocation of FSUs are same for an NSS state-region although 25% of the urban FSUs rotate over the quarters according to the rotational scheme. However, quarterly allocation of urban FSUs for FOD regions and FOD sub-regions may vary over the quarters since new FSUs entering the sample according to the rotational scheme may or may not belong to the same FOD region or FOD sub-region.
Data collection
| Start | End |
|---|---|
| 2021-07 | 2022-06 |
- Face-to-face [f2f]
Metadata production
DDI_IND_2021_PLFS_v01_M
| Name | Abbreviation | Affiliation | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| Survey Coordination Division | MOSPI | M/o STATISTICS & PROGRAMME IMPLEMENTATION | DOCUMENTATION OF THE STUDY |
2025-06-03
Metadata version
Identical to a metadata (DDI-IND-CSO-PLFS-2021-22) published on National Statistics Office of India microdata repository (https://microdata.gov.in/NADA/index.php/catalog). Some of the metadata fields have been edited.