New Delhi: India’s unemployment rate eased marginally to 4.9% in February from 5% in the previous month, reflecting an improvement in hiring activity, particularly in urban areas, according to the latest Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) monthly bulletin released by the National Statistics Office (NSO) on Monday.
Urban unemployment fell to a three-month low of 6.6% in February from 7% in January, signalling a recovery in the labour market in cities after the winter lull. In contrast, the rural unemployment rate remained unchanged at 4.2% during the month.
The NSO measures the jobless rate in its monthly bulletin using the current weekly status (CWS) methodology, under which the activity status of a person is determined based on the seven days preceding the date of the survey. Under this framework, a person is considered unemployed in a week if they did not work even for one hour on any day during the reference week but sought or were available for work for at least one hour during that period.
February saw a notable improvement in employment indicators among women. The female unemployment rate declined to 5.1% from 5.6% in January. In urban areas, the female unemployment rate fell to 8.7% from 9.8%, while in rural areas it eased to 4% from 4.3% over the same period.
The improvement also coincided with a modest increase in women’s labour force participation rate (LFPR), which rose to 35.3% in February from 35.1% in January, indicating that more women entered or sought to enter the workforce. However, the overall LFPR for people aged 15 years and above remained unchanged at 55.9% during the month.
Among men, the unemployment rate remained stable at 4.8% in February, the same level recorded in January. Meanwhile, the LFPR in rural areas remained unchanged at 58.7%, while the urban LFPR inched up marginally to 50.4% from 50.3% in the previous month.
The worker population ratio (WPR), which represents the proportion of employed persons in the population, rose slightly to 53.2% in February from 53.1% in January.
However, the rural and urban male WPR declined marginally during the month, falling to 75.4% and 73.8%, respectively, from 75.7% and 73.9% in January. In contrast, the rural and urban female WPR increased to 38.4% and 33.2%, respectively, from 38% and 33.1% in the preceding month.
According to the statistics office, February marked a strong recovery for the urban job market, with more women participating in the workforce and unemployment rates declining across both rural and urban areas.
The NSO also noted that the sampling methodology of the PLFS was revamped from January 2025 to enable the estimation of key employment and unemployment indicators on a monthly basis for both rural and urban areas at the all-India level using the CWS approach.
(Cover photo by Abhishek Kirloskar on Unsplash )