UPSC Prelims Practice Questions — Press Note on Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) Monthly Bulletin September 2026

Q1. In a household survey, a person who had been unemployed and actively seeking work becomes discouraged and stops looking for work altogether. Nothing else in the population changes. Which of the following correctly describes the effect on the estimated labour indicators?

  • A. LFPR stays unchanged, WPR stays unchanged and the unemployment rate falls
  • B. LFPR falls, WPR stays unchanged and the unemployment rate falls
  • C. LFPR stays unchanged, WPR falls and the unemployment rate rises
  • D. LFPR falls, WPR falls and the unemployment rate stays unchanged

Q2. The PLFS Monthly Bulletin for September 2026 (Current Weekly Status, persons aged 15 years and above) reports: rural LFPR 58.0% and rural WPR 55.5%; urban LFPR 50.7% and urban WPR 47.2%. Consider the following inferences: Which of the inferences given above can validly be drawn?

  1. The unemployment rate in urban areas is higher than that in rural areas.
  2. Of every 100 urban persons aged 15 years and above, about 7 are unemployed.
  3. A larger share of the rural population than of the urban population is outside the labour force.
  • A. 1 only
  • B. 1 and 2 only
  • C. 1, 2 and 3
  • D. 2 and 3 only

Q3. With reference to the Current Weekly Status (CWS) and Usual Status (ps+ss) approaches used in the Periodic Labour Force Survey, consider the following statements: Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

  1. Under CWS, a person is counted as employed only if he or she worked for the major part of the seven-day reference week.
  2. A person in regular work through most of the year who was jobless and seeking work during the survey week alone would be unemployed under CWS but employed under usual status.
  3. Under usual status, a person's principal activity status is decided by the activity on which he or she spent the most time during the survey week.
  • A. 1 and 2 only
  • B. 2 and 3 only
  • C. 1 and 3 only
  • D. 2 only

Q4. Consider the following statements: Which of the following is correct in respect of the above statements?

  1. The PLFS Monthly Bulletins report LFPR, WPR and unemployment rate in Usual Status (ps+ss) as well as in Current Weekly Status.
  2. Under the PLFS design adopted from January 2025, each sampled household is visited in four consecutive months, so about three-fourths of the sample is common between two successive months.
  • A. Both Statement-I and Statement-II are correct and Statement-II explains Statement-I
  • B. Both Statement-I and Statement-II are correct, but Statement-II does not explain Statement-I
  • C. Statement-I is correct, but Statement-II is incorrect
  • D. Statement-I is incorrect, but Statement-II is correct

Q5. With reference to the sample design of the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) adopted from January 2025, consider the following statements: Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

  1. Under the earlier design, rural sample households were not revisited, so rural estimates could not follow the same households across successive visits.
  2. Treating districts as basic strata spreads first-stage units across most districts instead of only across larger NSS regions, making estimates more representative.
  3. Raising the number of households surveyed in each first-stage unit from 8 to 12 makes the post-2025 estimates directly comparable with the pre-2025 series.
  • A. 1 only
  • B. 1, 2 and 3
  • C. 1 and 2 only
  • D. 2 and 3 only

Q6. Consider the following assertion: 'The PLFS as redesigned by the National Statistics Office from 2025 is a better basis for timely employment policy than the earlier design.' Which of the following statements support the above assertion?

  1. Monthly estimates on the Current Weekly Status shorten the lag between a change in the labour market and its measurement.
  2. A sample about 2.65 times larger than before improves the precision of the estimates.
  3. Sub-annual estimates now cover rural areas, whereas the earlier quarterly estimates covered only urban areas.
  4. The larger sample makes month-to-month movements in the estimates entirely free of sampling error.
  • A. 1, 2, 3 and 4
  • B. 1 and 2 only
  • C. 2, 3 and 4 only
  • D. 1, 2 and 3 only

Q7. A woman spends her whole day cooking, cleaning and caring for children and elderly members of her own household. She does no work for pay or profit and is not seeking such work. With reference to labour statistics, consider the following statements: Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

  1. She is outside the labour force and therefore does not raise the unemployment rate.
  2. Her activities come within the scope of a Time Use Survey, which records time spent on unpaid domestic and caregiving services.
  3. If she also tended her household's crop grown for sale for a few hours in the reference week, she could be counted as employed under the Current Weekly Status.
  • A. 1 only
  • B. 1 and 3 only
  • C. 1, 2 and 3
  • D. 2 and 3 only

Q8. The PLFS (Current Weekly Status) shows that between September 2025 and September 2026, female LFPR rose from 34.1% to 34.6% overall and from 37.9% to 38.9% in rural areas, while it moved from 26.1% to 25.9% in urban areas. In September 2026, the unemployment rate was 9.2% for urban women and 3.9% for rural women. Which of the following inferences can be drawn from the above data?

  1. The year-on-year rise in all-India female LFPR came mainly from rural women.
  2. Rural women's higher LFPR shows that rural women have access to better-paid jobs than urban women.
  3. Roughly one in eleven urban women in the labour force was without work and seeking or available for it.
  4. Low urban female LFPR is wholly the result of a shortage of available jobs in cities.
  • A. 2 and 4 only
  • B. 1 and 3 only
  • C. 1, 3 and 4 only
  • D. 1, 2 and 3 only