Jobs data for 50 cities likely soon; Bengaluru, Mumbai in focus

New Delhi: How tight is the job market in Bengaluru? How many people are unemployed in Mumbai or Hyderabad? Answers to questions like these may soon be just a dataset away with the statistics ministry planning to release employment data for about 50 cities having more than one million residents each, said government officials.

The list of cities to be covered in the survey include Visakhapatnam, Lucknow, Kolkata, Pune, Meerut, Jaipur, Patna, Surat, Gwalior and Chennai, they said, adding that the data could be released in the first half of 2026.

The annual periodic labour force survey for 2025 covering states and union territories is slated for release in the last week of March, but a city-wise survey report is expected only in the next few months.

“The sample design (of PLFS) has been modified with district as the basic stratum, which has made it possible to generate estimates for cities,” a government official told ET. The PLFS provides information on key labour market indicators such as unemployment rate, labour force participation rate (LFPR), worker population ratio, and employment conditions for both male and female workers.

The city-level estimates will help policymakers and researchers track labour markets more closely, particularly in large metros.

The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) revamped the PLFS methodology from January 2025 to make the survey more representative and generate high-frequency labour market indicators.

Under the revised design, districts have been made the primary geographical unit for selecting first stage units (FSUs) within a state or union territory in both rural and urban areas. The PLFS is now released on a monthly basis, and annual reports will follow the calendar year, instead of the earlier July-June cycle. According to the latest PLFS release, India’s unemployment rate rose slightly to 5% in January, from 4.8% in December 2025. Meanwhile, LFPR-the share of the population working or seeking work-eased to 55.9% from 56.1% over the same period.

Separately, the ministry will also publish a city-level report for unincorporated non-agricultural sector enterprises, Saurabh Garg, secretary, MoPSI, told ET earlier. The report is expected in the first half of the year, while the factsheet of Annual Survey of Unincorporated Sector Enterprises (ASUSE) 2025 will be released in the last week of March.