India’s April LFPR at 55.6%, Unemployment Rate at 5.1%: First Monthly PLFS Report

Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR) in Current Weekly Status (CWS) among persons aged 15 years and above stood at 55.6 percent during April, 2025. According to the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) first monthly labour force and unemployment data, LFPR in rural areas was 58 percent and LFPR in urban areas was 50.7 percent for persons of the same age group during last month.

Meanwhile, India’s unemployment rate (UR) in CWS stood at 5.1 percent in April for individuals aged 15 years and above. The unemployment rate for men stood marginally higher at 5.2 percent as compared to female UR of 5 percent at the country level. As per the data, the Worker Population Ratio (WPR), a measure of the proportion of working-age people who are employed, stood at 52.8 percent. 

The rural WPR was higher at 55.4 percent, while in urban areas it was 47.4 percent. WPR for female of age 15 years and above for rural was



36.8 percent and in urban areas was 23.5 per cent, during the month and the overall female WPR of the same age group at the country level was observed as 32.5 percent.

The National Statistics Office (NSO) had announced yesterday that the sampling design of the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) has been revamped from January 2025 to address the requirement of high-frequency labour market indicators with enhanced coverage to include the rural areas as well.

The revamped PLFS design is envisaged to estimate the key employment and unemployment indicators (Labour Force Participation Rate, Worker Population Ratio and Unemployment Rate) on a monthly basis for rural and urban areas in the CWS at all India level. The monthly results are planned to be released in the form of monthly bulletins of PLFS. The present monthly bulletin is the first in the series for the month April 2025.