India to release monthly unemployment rate data from February-March 2025

PLFS to be released monthly from early next year

The government will begin releasing monthly unemployment data from early next year alongside inflation and industrial production statistics, sources informed Moneycontrol.

“The monthly unemployment numbers will be made available from end-February or early March 2025,” a person aware of the development said.

The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation had planned to release monthly urban unemployment statistics and quarterly rural data. However, under the new plan, it will release both urban and rural employment data monthly starting in early 2025.

Moneycontrol had earlier reported that MoSPI was looking to increase the frequency of unemployment data. Urban unemployment data is released every quarter, while rural numbers are released annually, at present.

Results for the second quarter of FY25 released last month showed that unemployment declined in urban areas, with female unemployment falling more than male unemployment. Female unemployment at 8.4 percent was still higher than male unemployment at 5.7 percent.

Besides unemployment statistics, the Periodic Labour Force Survey data also details labour force participation, worker-population ratio and employment across different sectors.

The monthly release of statistics is expected to follow the same methodology as the quarterly survey, which computes employment based on current weekly status. The CWS counts anyone as employed if they work for even one hour on any day of the week.

Data revisions on the horizon

Besides unemployment data, in a major data overhaul, the government is looking to revise the base year and computation methodology for its growth, inflation and industrial production numbers starting February 2026.

MoSPI secretary Saurabh Garg stated on December 5 that the ministry will soon be releasing the results of the Time Use Survey and its recently launched capex survey.