Chapter 1
The headlines
In 2025, India released its eighth annual Periodic Labour Force Survey — the most comprehensive snapshot of the nation’s workforce.
It covered 1,148,634 persons across every state and union territory.
Periodic Labour Force Survey · CY2025 · 1,148,634 persons
India’s Labour Market
in 2025
What the latest Periodic Labour Force Survey reveals about who works, who can’t, and what the numbers won’t tell you.
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Participation
59.3%
Labour Force Participation Rate
Nearly 6 in 10 Indians aged 15 or older are either working or actively looking for work.
Employment
57.4%
Worker Population Ratio
Most people in the labour force are finding work — the gap to LFPR is just 1.9 percentage points.
Unemployment
3.1%
Unemployment Rate
Headline unemployment is low — but this number conceals who is counted, what kind of work they do, and who is left out.
Rural vs Urban
Two labour markets
Rural LFPR: 62.8%. Urban: 52.2%. But urban unemployment (4.8%) is double the rural rate (2.4%).
But averages hide the most important stories
When you break the data down by gender, geography, age, and education, a far more textured picture emerges.
Chapter 2
The gender divide
Male LFPR: 79.1%. Female: 40.0%.
39.1 pp
Gender gap in LFPR
Urban women
27.7%
Urban Female LFPR
Urban women have the lowest participation of any segment — norms, transport, care work, and the income effect all converge.
Rural women
45.9%
Rural Female LFPR
Rural women participate at nearly double the urban rate — often through agricultural self-employment and unpaid family labour.
The unemployment twist
Who faces the highest UR?
Urban female UR: 6.4% — the highest of any sector-gender combination.
Those who never enter the labour force do not appear in unemployment statistics at all.
More education should mean less unemployment. In India, the opposite is true.
And for women, the penalty is even steeper.
More educated, more unemployed
Labour indicators by education level · UPSS, all persons 15+, CY2025
LFPR WPR UR
Illiterate workers have just 0.3% unemployment — they cannot afford to be jobless. Graduates face 11.2% unemployment.
Female graduate UR is 17.4%, nearly double the male rate. Education expands aspirations faster than the economy absorbs them.
Chapter 4
The youth question
India’s demographic dividend is its greatest asset — and its biggest test.
The crisis age
9.9%
Youth Unemployment Rate (15–29)
More than 3× the national average of 3.1%.
NEET generation
26.0%
NEET Rate, ages 15–29
Millions of young people disconnected from both labour markets and education systems.
The contrast
Prime working age
Ages 30–44: LFPR 75.9%, UR just 1.1%. The labour market works — if you can wait a decade to enter it.
The numbers improve when you average across caste and religion. But India doesn’t live in averages.
Structural position shapes not just whether you work — but what kind of work is available to you.
Chapter 5
Caste and the labour market
ST workers have the highest LFPR at 73.1%. “Others” have the lowest at 53.9%.
Quality of work
The composition gap
SC workers: 34.5% in casual labour. ST: 26.9%. “Others”: 10.4%.
Regular wage access
Who gets stable jobs?
“Others”: 32.2% in regular wage employment. ST: 13.4%.
Gender × caste
The compounding gap
ST: 21.2 pp → SC: 37.7 pp → OBC: 39.4 pp → Others: 45.9 pp
Religion and work
Female LFPR by religion · UPSS, women 15+, CY2025
Christian women have the highest LFPR at 49.5%. Muslim women participate at just 27.8% — and in urban areas, 19.2%.
If participation tells you who’s in the labour force, composition tells you what awaits them there.
What kind of work?
Employment status distribution · UPSS workers 15+, CY2025
56.1% of workers are self-employed. Regular wage employment covers just 23.6%. Casual labour accounts for 20.2%.
A country of many labour markets
LFPR by State/UT · UPSS, persons 15+, CY2025 · Sorted highest to lowest