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Social Infrastructure and Employment 371

Long-term trends in employment using annual PLFS data

10.58 During Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) 2019-20 (survey period from July 2019 to
June 2020), employment at usual status continued to expand. Between 2018-19 and 2019-20,
21
about 4.75 crore additional persons joined the workforce. This is about three times more than
the employment created between 2017-18 and 2018-19. The rural sector contributed much more
to this expansion relative to the urban sector (3.45 crore in rural sector and 1.30 crore in urban
sector). Further, amongst the additional workers, 2.99 crore were females (63 percent). About
65 percent of the additional workers joined in 2019-20 were self-employed. About 75 percent of
the female workers who joined as self-employed were ‘unpaid family labour.’ About 18 percent
of the additional workers were Casual labourer and 17 percent were ‘Regular Wage/Salaried
Employee’. Further, the number of unemployed persons in 2019-20 has also decreased by 23
lakhs, constituted largely by males from the rural sector (Table 7).

Table 7: Estimates of Labour Force, Employment, and Unemployment for the years 2017-18 to
2019-20 (all ages; principal status+ subsidiary status , in crore)

Rural Urban Total
Description
Male Female Total Male Female Total Male Female Total

2017-18
Labour Force 25.48 8.67 34.15 13.25 3.57 16.82 38.73 12.24 50.97

Employment 23.91 7.70 31.61 12.39 3.15 15.53 36.29 10.85 47.14

Unemployment 1.57 0.97 2.54 0.86 0.42 1.29 2.44 1.39 3.83

2018-19
Labour Force 25.77 8.77 34.54 13.60 3.68 17.28 39.37 12.45 51.82

Employment 24.37 8.46 32.83 12.64 3.31 15.96 37.01 11.77 48.78

Unemployment 1.40 0.31 1.71 0.96 0.37 1.33 2.36 0.68 3.04

2019-20
Labour Force 26.64 11.12 37.76 14.23 4.35 18.58 40.87 15.47 56.34

Employment 25.45 10.81 36.26 13.32 3.95 17.27 38.77 14.76 53.53

Unemployment 1.18 0.32 1.50 0.91 0.40 1.31 2.09 0.72 2.81

Source: Survey Estimates using PLFS 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20 Surveys. The estimates are approximate.
Note 1: Projected population as on 1st January, 2018 was 135 crore, as on 1st January 2019 was 137 crore; and as
on 1st January, 2020 was 140. 48crore. The formula for projection is A = A1 * [1 + R /100](n/k), where A1 is the
census population as on 1st March 2011, R is the percentage decadal change in population between census 2001
and 2011, n is the month of projection, and k is number of months between March 2011 and March 2021.
Note 2: Principal status (ps) measures the activity in which an individual has spent relatively longer time of a
reference year (major time criterion) while subsidiary status (ss) measures the activity status of an individual who
has spent majority of days out of work force but have worked for short period of time (more than 30 days).

21 Usual status is the activity status of a person during the reference period of 365 days preceding the date of survey.