The government has decided to redesign the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) to track digital platform workers and unpaid household and caregiving work.

• The NSSO, under MoSPI, has proposed a new sampling design and survey schedule. To find households with at least one digital platform worker, the survey will form a separate Second Stage Stratum (SSS), which is a group used to pick households.
• There will be 4 such groups in rural areas and 5 in urban areas, and 14 households will be surveyed in each selected First Stage Unit (FSU), the first-level sampling unit.
• The survey will also add questions on own-use production and unpaid household, caregiving, volunteer and trainee work, and further questions on labour underutilisation.
• These activities were not measured separately in the PLFS until now, although women spend a large share of their time on them.

• Purpose: The PLFS is the main source of India’s labour statistics. It estimates the Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR), the Worker Population Ratio (WPR) and unemployment.
• LFPR and WPR: LFPR is the share of the population that is working or seeking or available for work. WPR is the share that is employed.
• Recent trend: PLFS 2025 data showed rural female LFPR rising from 33% to 45.9% since 2019-20, and urban female LFPR from 23.3% to 27.7%.
• Labour underutilisation: It is a wider measure than unemployment. It also counts people who want more work, or who want work but are not looking for it.

The revision targets two groups that current data barely captures.

• Platform workers: A separate stratum and a direct questionnaire entry raise the chance of reaching a small and fast-growing group.
• Unpaid work: Specific questions will record time spent on cooking, cleaning, childcare and care of the elderly, sick or disabled.
• Better design: Sample allocation and stratification criteria have been updated to improve representation and ease field work.

• Hidden contribution: Unpaid care supports the household and lets others take up paid jobs, but it does not show in output or employment data.
• Gender gap: Women do most of this work, so counting it shows the real burden behind their lower participation in paid work.
• Gig economy: Platform workers are a growing segment, and policy on their social security and welfare needs reliable numbers.
• Evidence for policy: Better data can guide childcare, elder care and labour policy.
• Takeaway: What is not measured is rarely planned for.

• Measurement difficulty: Defining and recalling platform work and unpaid care is harder than counting a regular job.
• Rare group in the sample: Platform workers are a small share of households, so a general sample may miss them.
• Series break: Changes in design can make new figures hard to compare with earlier PLFS rounds.
• Mixing up work and employment: Unpaid care must be reported separately from paid work, or participation rates may look inflated.
• Respondent burden: Longer questionnaires can reduce the quality of answers.