New Delhi, April 2 -- Last week, the National Statistical Office (NSO) released its annual report of the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) for 2025. It differs from earlier PLFS reports in its coverage and sampling design.

The PLFS has been in existence since 2017, yielding annual reports for rural and urban areas along with quarterly reports for only urban India. This survey was a departure from the erstwhile Employment and Unemployment Survey (EUS).

For the first time, we had a rotational panel, with households being revisited for four consecutive quarters. The quarterly estimates were based on this rotational sample and were only for urban areas.

These changed in January 2025, with the PLFS adopting a different sampling strategy, ...