Number Theory: Understanding the rise of unpaid workers in India
This is the 3rd part of a four-part data journalism series on key trends in Periodic Labour Force Survey. The 4th will show changes in India’s rural job market.
India’s headline unemployment rate has decreased continuously in the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) that started in 2017-18. This was possible because more jobs than job-seekers were added to India’s labour market between 2017-18 and 2022-23. However, not all of these jobs were good. Unpaid family workers have contributed to 37% of the growth in India’s workforce since 2017-18. The share of such of unpaid workers in the workforce is now not very different from regular wage or salaried workers. Unpaid family workers accounted for 18.3% of the workers in the 2022-23 PLFS compared to the 20.9% share of regular wage workers. These numbers were 13.6% and 22.8% for unpaid workers and regular workers in 2017-18. Who are these unpaid workers and what has contributed to their growth? Here are five charts that answer these questions.
