India Labour Observatory
The people behind India's labour statistics, counted from the records themselves.
India learns how its people work from its national surveys: households visited across every State, each person asked what they did and on what terms. The observatory reads those surveys from the records MoSPI releases, person by person, and checks every number it prints against the tables MoSPI published. Where a number cannot be checked, it says so. Where two surveys cannot be joined, it leaves the seam open. What follows is what the records say about the people in them.
FrontispieceIndia, in a thousand
In 2023-24, of every thousand Indians aged fifteen and over, 242 were paid a wage. Another 112 worked without pay in a family's field or shop, and 210 kept a house the survey does not count as work.
MoSPI, Periodic Labour Force Survey, 2017-18 to 2023-24 189 of 189 cells MoSPI printed match
- Source
- MoSPI, Periodic Labour Force Survey, 2017-18 to 2023-24: the primary unit-level records, weighted as MoSPI weights them
- Checked
- 189 of 189 cells MoSPI printed match at the printed precision (PLFS Annual Report 2017-18, persons 15+ (ps+ss), all-India; PLFS Annual Report 2018-19, persons 15+ (ps+ss), all-India; PLFS Annual Report 2019-20, persons 15+ (ps+ss), all-India; PLFS Annual Report 2020-21, persons 15+ (ps+ss), all-India; PLFS Annual Report 2021-22, persons 15+ (ps+ss), all-India; PLFS Annual Report 2022-23, persons 15+ (ps+ss), all-India; PLFS Annual Report 2023-24, persons 15+ (ps+ss), all-India)
Release 2026.10The stories
- India's Labour Market in 2025 The first calendar year of the labour survey, read from its records: who works, who cannot find work, and how unequally both are shared.
- The PLFS 2025 tables Every table of the first calendar-year survey, with its standard errors and its check against MoSPI’s print, to read and download.
- The Subcontracted Republic Fifty years of the Indian factory wage, and the worker hired through a contractor, now two in every five on the factory floor.
Three numbersCounted, and checked
468 → 582
Of every thousand Indians aged fifteen and over, the number the survey counts as working, 2017-18 to 2023-24.
MoSPI, Periodic Labour Force Survey, 2017-18 to 2023-24 189 of 189 cells MoSPI printed match
- Source
- MoSPI, Periodic Labour Force Survey, 2017-18 to 2023-24: the primary unit-level records, weighted as MoSPI weights them
- Checked
- 189 of 189 cells MoSPI printed match at the printed precision (PLFS Annual Report 2017-18, persons 15+ (ps+ss), all-India; PLFS Annual Report 2018-19, persons 15+ (ps+ss), all-India; PLFS Annual Report 2019-20, persons 15+ (ps+ss), all-India; PLFS Annual Report 2020-21, persons 15+ (ps+ss), all-India; PLFS Annual Report 2021-22, persons 15+ (ps+ss), all-India; PLFS Annual Report 2022-23, persons 15+ (ps+ss), all-India; PLFS Annual Report 2023-24, persons 15+ (ps+ss), all-India)
70 → 148
Of every thousand women, those working without pay in a family enterprise, 2017-18 to 2023-24: a rise far beyond the survey’s margin of error.
MoSPI, Periodic Labour Force Survey, 2017-18 to 2023-24 189 of 189 cells MoSPI printed match
- Source
- MoSPI, Periodic Labour Force Survey, 2017-18 to 2023-24: the primary unit-level records, weighted as MoSPI weights them
- Checked
- 189 of 189 cells MoSPI printed match at the printed precision (PLFS Annual Report 2017-18, persons 15+ (ps+ss), all-India; PLFS Annual Report 2018-19, persons 15+ (ps+ss), all-India; PLFS Annual Report 2019-20, persons 15+ (ps+ss), all-India; PLFS Annual Report 2020-21, persons 15+ (ps+ss), all-India; PLFS Annual Report 2021-22, persons 15+ (ps+ss), all-India; PLFS Annual Report 2022-23, persons 15+ (ps+ss), all-India; PLFS Annual Report 2023-24, persons 15+ (ps+ss), all-India)
68.6% → 48.9%
India's workers on the farm, 1983 to 2011-12, in one survey family: the great leaving that never reached the factory.
MoSPI, NSS employment and unemployment surveys, 1983 to 2011-12 682 of 797 cells MoSPI printed match
- Source
- MoSPI, NSS employment and unemployment surveys, 1983 to 2011-12: the primary unit-level records, weighted as MoSPI weights them
- Checked
- 682 of 797 cells MoSPI printed match at the printed precision; 99 more within one unit (WPR (Report 515, St. 5.1); industry (PLFS AR 2023-24, St. 7); industry (Report 554, St. 5.11))