EconomyJobs and incomes
What does India's labour survey say about work?
52.8% of Indians aged 15 and over were working in August 2026, and 5.0% of those in the labour force were looking for work without finding it. Women's participation, 34.8%, is less than half of men's, 77.3%.
Written for anyone who wants to read India's labour survey properly. Survey to August 2026.
Three measures
The labour force is everyone working or looking for work: 55.6% of people aged 15 and over in August 2026. The worker population ratio is the share actually working, 52.8%. The unemployment rate is the share of the labour force not working but looking, 5.0%. A person counts as working if they did at least an hour of work, paid or on a family enterprise, in the week before the interview.
Labour force participation and the share working, monthly
Persons 15 and over, all India, current weekly status, from April 2025.
How to read it. The gap between the lines is the unemployed. Farm work rises and falls with the seasons, so compare a month with the same month a year earlier once there is one.
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Women
In villages 39.4% of women aged 15 and over were in the labour force in August 2026; in towns and cities 25.4%. In the urban quarterly series, which starts in 2018, women's participation rose from 18.8% in Q1 FY19 to 25.0% in Q1 FY27, while men's went from 73.6% to 75.3%.
Urban labour force participation, women and men
Quarterly, current weekly status, persons 15+, from April-June 2018.
How to read it. Much of women's work, on family farms and in the home, sits at the edge of what the survey counts; a rise can mean more jobs or more households needing a second earner.
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The young
Unemployment among people aged 15 to 29 was 15.1% in August 2026: 18.7% in towns and cities and 13.3% in villages. Among all adults it was 5.1% for women and 4.9% for men.
Youth unemployment, monthly
Persons 15-29, current weekly status, from April 2025.
How to read it. Young graduates often wait for a job that matches their education rather than take any work, which pushes their rate up; it is part choice and part shortage.
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Cities since 2018
The urban quarterly series is the only long run. Its unemployment rate went from 9.7% in Q1 FY19 to 6.7% in Q1 FY27; participation from 46.2% to 50.2%. Two quarters whose published rates do not add up are left blank.
Urban labour market, quarterly
Current weekly status, persons 15+ (youth 15-29), April-June 2018 onward. Each panel has its own scale.
How to read it. The redesign in January 2025 changed how households are sampled; read the last few quarters as a new series joined to the old.
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Feelings against the survey
We wrote a test down before computing it (C86 in the pre-registration log): do changes over a year in urban households' net view of jobs, from RBI's survey, move with changes in the urban unemployment rate? Over 13 quarters from Q2 FY20 to Q1 FY27, leaving out the lockdowns, the rank correlation was 0.10 (p 0.75). Leaving out the changes that span the 2025 redesign, it was 0.31 over 10.
Households' view of jobs and the unemployment rate, changes over a year
Urban; each quarter against the same quarter a year earlier. Quarters touching the lockdowns left out.
How to read it. If feelings tracked the survey, the lines would move in opposite directions: unemployment up, view of jobs down. They do not.
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The result. The test does not pass, as we predicted. Even the levels lean together only weakly (rank correlation −0.24 over 22 quarters). 13 changes are few, so this says the two do not track each other, not that they are unrelated. Households judge jobs by pay, security and hours as much as by whether anyone in the family is jobless, and the unemployment rate measures only the last.
The workings
The question
Data
Every chart has a table view, a CSV download and a link to its published JSON. Bundles are listed in data status.