Salaried Employment Stagnated, Casual Employment Declined

A closer look at the just released quarterly PLFS data for last quarter of 2025-26, January-March 2026, shows that salaried employment in India remains stagnant at 25.5 per cent, while casual employment has declined to 18.7 per cent from 20.1 per cent in the first quarter April-June 2025. Self-employment has risen during this period from 54.4 per cent to 55.8 per cent, which included rise in contributing but unpaid family worker from 14.1 per cent to 14.3 per cent, and own account worker from 39 per cent to 40.7 per cent.

According to Worker Population Ratio (WPR) in Current Weekly Status (CWS), that is the workforce that actually worked for at least 1 hour on any day during the 7 days preceding the date of survey, those persons were also counted as self-employed who did not work either due to sickness or due to other reasons though they had self-employment work, who were 0.8 per cent. It means those who did not earned anything were 15.1 per cent, but were counted as employed.

It clearly shows the very low quality of employment in India. When regular wage and salaried employments have stagnated, and even getting casual employment opportunities declined, people started their own work to somehow survive. Majority of them were even counted as employer because family members contributed in their work, counted as employed but remained unpaid. Among these unpaid workers 28.7 per cent were female and 7.6 per cent males of the family, totally unpaid but counted as employed. It is therefore, the quality of female employment in India remained worst.

How misleading is the self-employed data for female in India is can just be imagined by the WPR data that says that there were 64.8 per cent self-employed females during January-March 2026, out of which only 35.5 per cent were own account workers earning something, but 28.7 per cent were only contributing family workers who were unpaid. This marks the precarious conditions in which women workers have fallen into. Self-employment among female workers has risen from 63.5 per cent in the first quarter of 2025-26, while regular wage and salaried employment declined from 21.4 per cent in April-June 2025 to 21.1 per cent in January-March 2026. There was also sharp fall in their casual employment which fell from 15.1 per cent to just 14.1 per cent during this period.

Self-employment also rose during this period for male workers from 50.3 per cent to 51.6 per cent. Casuals work for them declined from 22.4 per cent to 20.9 per cent during this period, while regular wage and salaried employment for them marginally rose from 27.3 per cent to 27.5 per cent. Out of the self-employed male, 43.1 per cent males were own account workers which has risen from 41.3 per cent, while unpaid contributing family male unpaid workers have risen from 7.5 per cent to 7.6 per cent.

In the urban areas, regular wage and salaried workers declined from 49.4 per cent in the first quarter of 2025-26 to 48.9 per cent in the last quarter January-March 2026. Casual employment also declined from 11.3 per cent to 11.2 per cent. Due to the less opportunity of employment in the labour market, the percentage of self-employed people rose from 39.3 per cent to 39.9 per cent, contributing family members rose from 6 per cent to 6.2 per cent, and own account workers rose from 32.2 to 33 per cent.

Female own account workers in the urban areas rose from 25.1 per cent to 25.9 per cent and contributing family female workers from 11.1 per cent to 11.7 per cent, adding up to a rise from 37.4 per cent to 38 per cent from first quarter to fourth quarter of the year 2025-26. Regular wage and salaried employment from them declined from 55.1 per cent to 54.2 per cent, while opportunity for casual work stagnated at 7.5 per cent.

For male in urban areas, casual work declined from 12.5 per cent in the first quarter to 12.3 per cent in the last quarter, while regular wage and salaried employment declined from 47.5 per cent to 47.2 per cent. It pushed the self-employment up from 40 per cent to 40.5 per cent, own account worker from 34.6 per cent to 35.3 per cent and contributing family male workers from 4.3 per cent to 4.4 per cent.

In rural areas, quality of employment was far worse than in urban areas. Regular wage and salaried employment remained at 15.5 per cent during January-March 2026 which was 15.4 per cent during April-June 2025. There was sharp decline in availability of casual employment which came down from 23.9 per cent to 21.9 per cent. It pushed the level of self-employment up from 60.7 per cent to 62.5 per cent. Own account worker rose from 41.9 to 44 per cent and contributing family workers rose from 17.5 per cent to 17.7 per cent.

There was very little opportunity for female workers in the rural areas, where regular wage and salaried employment to them remained as little as 11.2 per cent during January-March 2026, which was a little improvement from 10.9 per cent. Nevertheless, casual employment for them had a sharp decline from 17.5 per cent in the first quarter of the year to 16.1 per cent in the last quarter. No wonder self-employment among rural female was as high as 72.7 per cent during January-March 2026 which had risen from 71.6 per cent in April-June 2025. Own account rural female workers rose from 36.4 per cent to 38.4 per cent, though contributing female rural workers declined from 34.3 per cent to 33.8 per cent which is very high because they are unpaid workers.

For male rural workers, casual employment declined from 27.1 per cent to 25 per cent though regular wage and salaried employment opportunities rose from 17.6 per cent to 17.9 per cent during this period. Self-employment among rural male workers rose from 55.3 per cent to 57.1 per cent, own account male workers rose from 44.6 per cent to 47 per cent and contributing rural male family workers rose from 9 per cent to 9.1 per cent.

All India WPR has risen from 39.3 per cent to 39.9 per cent between first and the fourth quarter, but it fell from 40.2 per cent in the third quarter of 2025-26. Male WPR was 54.8 per cent and female WPR was just 25.2 per cent during January-March 2026. WPR in urban areas was 37 per cent and in rural areas 41.3 per cent.

Employment in the agriculture sector was 41.1 per cent during January-March 2026, while in secondary sector including mining and quarrying it was 25.2 per cent and in the tertiary sector 33.7 per cent. The matter of concern is that the employment in secondary and tertiary sector has fallen from 26.6 per cent and 33.9 per cent in April-June 2025.

The All India Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR) in CWS, that is the workers actually employed and actively searching for employment, was 42 per cent – 57.6 per cent among males and 26.6 per cent among females. In urban areas LFPR was 39.7 per cent and in rural areas 43.1 per cent in January-March 2026.

Unemployment rate remained as high as 5 per cent in January-March 2026. Among youth 15-29 years it was 15 per cent highest in the four quarters of the year, the lowest being 14.3 per cent in the third quarter October-December 2025. Rural unemployment stood at 4.3 per cent and urban unemployment at 6.6 per cent. (IPA Service)