core sector communique

Key Indicators of Employment and Unemployment in India, 2009-10


The National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation has released the key indicators of Employment and Unemployment in India, generated from the data collected in its 66th round survey during July 2009 - June 2010. NSS surveys on employment and unemployment are conducted quinquennially starting from 27th round (October 1972 – September 1973) and the last quinquennial survey was conducted in NSS 61st round (July 2004- June 2005) for which, the results have already been released. The NSS 66th round was the eighth quinquennial round on the subject. The detailed results of quinquennial survey on employment and unemployment are usually brought out by the NSSO through a number of reports. In order to make available the salient results of the survey, well in advance of the release of its reports, for use in planning, policy formulation, decision support and as input for further statistical exercises, the NSSO has released the key indicators. With this maiden effort, NSSO is meeting an important aspiration and demand of its data users to have the key results within one year of the completion of its field work.

The indicators are based on the Central Sample of 1,00,957 households (59,129 in rural areas and 41,828 in urban areas) surveyed from 7,402 sample villages in rural areas and 5,252 urban blocks spread over all States and Union Territories except in (i) interior villages of Nagaland situated beyond five kilometres of a bus route (ii) villages in Andaman and Nicobar Islands which remain inaccessible throughout the year and (iii) Leh, Kargil and Poonch districts of Jammu and Kashmir.

  In defining the lead indicators of Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR i.e. ratio of labor force to population), Workers Population Ratio (WPR), Proportion Unemployed (PU i.e. percentage of unemployed in population) and Unemployment Rate (UR i.e. the ratio of unemployed to labour force) in NSS surveys, persons are classified into various activity categories on the basis of activities pursued by them during certain specified reference periods. Three reference periods used in NSS surveys are (i) one year, (ii) one week and (iii) each day of the reference week. Based on these three periods, three different measures of activity status are arrived at. The activity status determined on the basis of the reference period of one year is known as the Usual Status (US) of a person, that determined on the basis of a reference period of one week is known as the Current Weekly Status (CWS) of the person and the activity status determined on the basis of the engagement on each day during the reference week is known as the Current Daily Status (CDS) of the person. In US approach, there are two indicators viz. one based on principal activity called Usual Principal Status (ps) and other based on both principal and subsidiary activities taken together called US (ps+ss). The unit of measurements in case of US and CWS is persons and in case on CDS, it is person days.