Who measures employment in India

1) Labour Bureau, Government of India: Comes up quarterly and annual reports

2) NSSO: Conducts employment & unemployment surveys, every five years to measure inter-alia employment & unemployment situation in the country

What are the major employment indicators

Labour force participation rate (LFPR): Defined as the number of persons/ person-days in the labour force per 1000 persons /person-days

Worker Population Ratio (WPR): Defined as the number of persons/person-days employed per 1,000 persons/person-days

Unemployment Rate (UR): UR is defined as the number of persons/person-days unemployed per 1000 persons/person-days in the labour force (which includes both the employed and unemployed)

How India measures its Labour Force

India calculates the labour force using two different approaches: Usual Principal Status (UPS) and Usual Principal and Subsidiary Status (UPSS). Under UPS, a person is considered part of the labour force if s/he works for 183 days or more in a year. Under UPSS, a person who has worked even for 30 days in a year is considered employed.

Various types of employment

Three reference periods are used in NSSO surveys to measure employment status: one year, one week and each day of the reference week.

Based on these three periods, three different measures of activity status are arrived at:

Usual activity status: Determined on the basis of the reference period of one year

Current weekly status: Determined on the basis of a reference period of one week

Current daily status: Determined on the basis of the engagement on each day during the reference week