How we count
A number about Indian work is a decision about people: who is counted as working, whose day is left out, which survey is trusted. These are the rules we hold ourselves to, so that anyone can hold us to them.
OneFrom the records themselves
Every number in our monographs is computed from the unit-level records the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation makes public: the employment surveys of the National Sample Survey, the Periodic Labour Force Survey, the Annual Survey of Industries, the Time Use Survey, the household consumption surveys. Each record is weighted as MoSPI weights it. We do not start from another publication's totals, and we do not model a number the records cannot give.
TwoChecked against the print
MoSPI prints its own tables from the same records. Before we publish a figure, the tables behind it are compared with that print, cell by cell, and the result is written under the figure: how many printed cells our numbers match. Where we differ, we say by how much and why. Where MoSPI prints no table to compare with, the figure says so, and says it was computed from the records alone.
ThreeThe seam left open
India has measured work with different instruments over the years, and MoSPI says some of them cannot be joined. We never join them. A line stops where a survey ends and begins again where the next one starts, and the break is drawn in the state's colour, because it was the state's decision. A change across a seam is set beside, never read as a trend.
FourUncertainty, said in words
A survey is a sample, and every estimate carries an error. Where the design allows, we compute it, and the words follow it: a number "rose" only when the rise is larger than the survey's margin of error; otherwise we say the change is within it.
FiveDescription, then reading
The surveys show who is where; they rarely show why. Our figures describe. Where we offer an interpretation, of the state's retreat, of capital's share, of the unpaid work that holds a household together, it is set apart and marked as ours, so a reader can disagree with the reading and still trust the count.
SixNo number by hand
No number in a monograph is typed into its text. Each is computed, when the page is built, from the checked tables, so the words cannot fall behind the data. Our build refuses a page that breaks this rule, and every page of this release is built under it.
SevenPeople, never persons
We publish what the records say about groups, never about anyone who can be recognised. No figure on this site shows a single respondent's record.
The same holds for our readers. To learn which pages are read and which are not, we count page views with Cloudflare Web Analytics, which sets no cookie and keeps nothing that could name a reader. We count visits, never visitors.
EightCorrections, in public
When we find an error, we correct the page, date the correction, and list it here with what changed. Every page belongs to a numbered release of the observatory, so a citation can say which version it read.
Release 2026.10: no corrections issued.
The releaseWhat Release 2026.10 holds
- 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.
- India's Labour Market in 2025: the first calendar year of the labour survey, read from its records.
- The Atlas and the district atlas: every State and district, with the survey's own margin.
- The 2025 tables: 114 tables of the 2025 labour survey, every figure MoSPI's press note prints checked against them.
Release 2026.10: every number on the site was computed together, from the same reading of MoSPI's records.
Data cardsEvery source, and its check
Each card below is one body of evidence the site reads, computed from MoSPI's unit-level records and checked against MoSPI's print before any page may use it. It says how it compares with what MoSPI printed, and where on this site it is read. One with no printed counterpart says it is computed.
- A thousand Indians 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) Read by the cover
- Contract and direct workers in factories Computed from the unit-level records: MoSPI prints no table to compare with. Read by subcontracted republic
- Factory wages in real terms Computed from the unit-level records: MoSPI prints no table to compare with. Read by subcontracted republic
- Factory wages over the long run: the earlier series Computed from the unit-level records: MoSPI prints no table to compare with. Read by subcontracted republic
- Factory wages over the long run: the modern series Computed from the unit-level records: MoSPI prints no table to compare with. Read by subcontracted republic
- Terms, pay and hours of work, by State 59 of 63 cells MoSPI printed match at the printed precision (PLFS Annual Report 2023-24, Statement 9; PLFS Annual Report 2023-24, Statement 6; PLFS Annual Report 2023-24, Statement 7) Read by the Atlas
- The 2025 labour survey: its headline rates 85 of 89 cells MoSPI printed match at the printed precision (key; status; industry; education) Read by India's Labour Market in 2025, the 2025 tables
- The 2025 labour survey: the tables 77 of 87 cells MoSPI printed match at the printed precision (1.1; 1.2; 1.3; 5.2; 5.3; 3.4; 3.1; 3.3; 7.1; 3.5; 11.1; 8.1; 10.2; 10.9; 9.2) Read by India's Labour Market in 2025, the 2025 tables
- The three rates, by State 28039 of 28044 cells MoSPI printed match at the printed precision (PLFS Annual Report 2017-18, Appendix A State tables; PLFS Annual Report 2018-19, Appendix A State tables; PLFS Annual Report 2019-20, Appendix A State tables; PLFS Annual Report 2020-21, Appendix A State tables; PLFS Annual Report 2021-22, Appendix A State tables; PLFS Annual Report 2022-23, Appendix A State tables; PLFS Annual Report 2023-24, Appendix A State tables) Read by the Atlas
- Who gets a factory's value added 20 of 20 cells MoSPI printed match at the printed precision (ASI Summary Results, Statement 3A (shares of NVA, 2013-14 to 2022-23)) Read by subcontracted republic
Reading a plateSix colours, one meaning each
The colours in our figures are not decoration. Each means one thing, in every story, so a reader who learns them once can read them everywhere. Where a figure's groups are not relations of work, such as industries or ages, the people are drawn in ink, and the few a story turns on take a quiet hue of their own, named beside them.
- Inkthe people, and the record
- Indigowage work: what is paid
- Brickuncompensated care and domestic reproduction
- Coppercorporate profit: the surplus capital keeps
- Turmericthe state: its schemes, its rules, the seams of its surveys
- Khakithe remainder: interest, rent, provident fund