New Delhi, Oct. 26 -- The Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) has emerged as one of the most tracked surveys conducted by the National Statistics Office (NSO). While the PLFS provides employment numbers for all major categories of employment, it has so far been unable to provide estimates for gig workers working for platforms such as Uber or Zomato.

In a major revamp, NSO has now proposed to add questions on such work from 2027 onward, and to create a separate stratum for households with digital platform workers. So far, policymakers and investors had to rely on industry figures, guestimates and projections to analyse gig work in the country. Now they will have access to official data from a nationally representative survey.

While this ...