Workforce

Also called: Total workers · Topic: Employment, Unemployment and Informalisation · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 6 "Employment: Growth, Informalisation and Other Issues"

Meaning

The workforce (also called total workers) is the total number of people doing an economic activity, meaning any activity that adds to the country's GNP (gross national product: the value of all final goods and services produced by a country's normal residents in a year, at home or abroad). It includes people working for a wage or salary, the self-employed and unpaid helpers in a family enterprise.

It matters because the workforce shows how many people actually produce the nation's output. Its size and make-up (rural or urban, men or women) tell us how the economy uses its people.

• Worker Population Ratio (WPR) = (employed persons ÷ population) × 100 [2]
• Workforce = labour force − unemployed persons

Explanation

Who is counted in the workforce

• The test is contribution to GNP. It does not matter whether the job is "high or low" in status or size.
• Three groups are included:
• Employees work for someone else and get a wage or salary. Example: a bank cashier or a daily-wage mason.
• The self-employed run their own enterprise. Example: a farmer on their own land or a shopkeeper.

• Helpers assist a main worker, even without pay. Example: unpaid family members on a family farm or in a family shop.

• People who are temporarily absent still count. If someone misses work because of illness, injury, disability, bad weather, festivals or social and religious functions, they stay in the workforce.

• Payment in kind still counts. A farm labourer paid in mangoes is a worker, because the farm output is part of GNP.

Who is outside the workforce

• Beggars, thieves, smugglers and gamblers are not workers.
• Their activity produces nothing new. It either only moves money from one person to another (a transfer) or is illegal.

• So it adds nothing to GNP, and they are not counted.

• People who do only housework are not counted.

• Housework is not treated as an economic activity, so a woman who only does housework is not counted as a worker.

• As a result, women's contribution to the economy is under-counted.

• NCERT examples:

Person	In workforce?	Reason
Raj, a schoolboy who works on the family farm after school	Yes	Farm output counts in GNP, and helpers are workers
Meena, a housewife who helps in her husband's cloth shop	Yes, for her shop work	She is an unpaid helper in a family enterprise
Meena, if she did only housework	No	Housework is outside the GNP boundary

• The ILO's wider view:
• The 19th ICLS (2013) (International Conference of Labour Statisticians, run by the ILO) defines work as any activity that produces goods or services for others or for one's own use [3][4].
• It lists five forms of work: own-use production work, employment, unpaid trainee work, volunteer work and other forms of work [3][4].
• Employment is only work done for pay or profit [3][4].
• So under the ILO framework, housework is "work" but not "employment". This is the same line NCERT draws for Meena.

How the workforce is measured (PLFS statuses)

• Usual Status uses the last 365 days before the survey [2].
• Principal status (ps): the activity on which the person spent a relatively long time in those 365 days [2].
• Subsidiary status (ss): an extra economic activity done for 30 days or more in the 365 days [2].

• Usual status (ps+ss) counts both. So a part-time worker like Raj is caught in the count.

• Current Weekly Status (CWS) uses the last 7 days before the survey [2].

• A 7-day window misses seasonal and part-time work.
• So CWS gives a smaller workforce than usual status.

Worked example

• A village has 1,000 people aged 15 and above.
• 600 are in the labour force (working, or seeking or available for work). 580 of them are working.
• Workforce = 580 people.
• WPR = 580 ÷ 1,000 × 100 = 58%
• LFPR = 600 ÷ 1,000 × 100 = 60%

• Unemployed = 600 − 580 = 20. UR = 20 ÷ 600 × 100 = 3.3%

• Exam trap: WPR is divided by the population, but UR is divided by the labour force.

In India

• Who measures it:
• The Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) is run by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) under MoSPI.
• It was launched in April 2017 [2].

• The 2023-24 round (July 2023 – June 2024) covered 1,01,920 households and 4,18,159 persons [2].

• Size and make-up (NCERT, Class 11):

• The workforce was about 545 million (54.5 crore) in 2022-23.
• About two-thirds of workers are rural, and about 77% are men. These figures include child labourers.
• Women make up one-fourth of the rural workforce and one-fifth of the urban workforce.

• The same chapter also gives 535 million for 2019-20. Always quote each figure with its own year.

• Latest WPR, persons aged 15+, usual status (ps+ss) [2]:

WPR	2017-18	2022-23	2023-24
All	46.8%	56.0%	58.2%
Male	71.2%	76.0%	76.3%
Female	22.0%	35.9%	40.3%
Rural	48.1%	59.4%	62.1%
Urban	43.9%	47.7%	49.4%

• What the data show:
• Female WPR almost doubled, from 22.0% (2017-18) to 40.3% (2023-24) [2].
• Most of that rise came in rural areas, where female WPR went from 23.7% to 46.5% [2].
• Urban female WPR is still low at 26.0% (2023-24) [2].
• On CWS, WPR in 2023-24 was only 53.7% [2].

Don't confuse with

• Labour force: includes people who are working and people who are seeking or available for work. The workforce includes only those who are working, so it leaves out the unemployed.
• Employment (ILO sense): means only work for pay or profit [3][4]. The Indian workforce count also includes unpaid helpers in family enterprises.
• Work (ILO sense): is wider than both, because it also covers own-use production such as housework [3]. Someone who does only housework does "work" but is not in the workforce.
• Worker Population Ratio (WPR): is a rate (workers as a percentage of the population). The workforce is an absolute number, such as about 545 million in 2022-23.

Prelims Hooks

• A beggar, thief, smuggler or gambler is not a worker, because the activity adds nothing to GNP. An unpaid helper in a family farm or shop is a worker.
• People temporarily absent because of illness, bad weather or festivals are still counted in the workforce. So are people paid in kind.
• PLFS was launched by NSSO (MoSPI) in April 2017 [2].
• Usual status uses a 365-day reference period, and subsidiary status needs 30 days or more of economic activity. CWS uses a 7-day period [2].
• WPR = employed ÷ population, but UR = unemployed ÷ labour force [2].
• PLFS 2023-24 (15+, ps+ss): WPR 58.2%, male WPR 76.3%, female WPR 40.3% [2].

Mains Points

• Rising female WPR: empowerment or distress?
• Female WPR rose from 22.0% to 40.3% between 2017-18 and 2023-24, and the rise was mostly rural [2].
• Part of the rise may be women joining as unpaid helpers in family farms and enterprises. They count as workers, like Meena, but may earn little and have no security.

• Good answers should discuss the quality of work, not only the number of workers.

• The invisible workforce:

• In 2024, 83.1% of women and 26.4% of men took part in unpaid domestic services [5].
• 41% of women aged 15-59 did unpaid caregiving, against 21.4% of men [5].
• This work lies outside the GNP boundary, so it is left out of the workforce. The national accounts under-value women's work as a result.

• The ILO's wider "work" concept [3] and time-use surveys help make this work visible. This is useful for GS-I and GS-III answers on gender and the care economy.

• The home as workplace and informal work:

• Outsourcing, IT work from home and home-based production (such as footballs stitched in Jalandhar homes and sold by MNCs) are growing.
• These arrangements raise the number of workers and give flexibility. But they push work into the informal sector, with no fixed hours, no social security and weak bargaining power.
• Policy should aim at better jobs and skilling, not only a bigger workforce.

Related concepts

• Economic activities
• Worker
• Wage
• Salary
• Payment in kind
• Fee
• Employee
• Employer
• Work from home
• Moonlighting

Read more

• Work, workers and the boundary of economic activity