It is India’s first computer-based survey launched by the National Statistical Office (NSO) in 2017.
The findings of the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) 2019-2020 was released recently.
It offers a credulity-stretching picture of a decline in the unemployment rate between 2017-18 and 2019-2020, together with an increase in the Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR).
PLFS reports a reduction in the usual - status unemployment rate from 6.1% in 2017-18 to 5.8% in 2018-19 and further to 4.8% in 2019-20.
It also shows a corresponding increase in the proportion of people participating in the country’s labour force from 36.9% to 37.5% and then further to 40.1% in 2019-20.
These positive trends have occurred amid a decline in the economy’s real growth rate from 7% to 4.2% over that period.
Thus, from a paradox of jobless growth in the past, India seems to have come full circle with ‘growthless employment'.