New Delhi: The statistics ministry is considering the inclusion of migration data in the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) 2026, a government official told ET.
“Discussions are underway to include this data point in the survey,” the official said.
Incorporating migration data is expected to help identify regions with high labour demand and better inform employment and welfare strategies of government policies.
Additionally, information on migrants is crucial for designing and delivering welfare schemes like the ‘One Nation One Ration Card’.
The initiative is part of the broader effort by the ministry of statistics and programme implementation (MoSPI) to make employment data more robust and accurate.
Questions such as whether an individual moved from their previous usual place of residence and why they shifted cities or states may become part of the 2026 survey design. The data will be collected across states and is expected to be released in 2027.
At present, the PLFS covers indicators such as unemployment rate, labour force participation rate (LFPR), and worker population ratio across rural and urban areas. While the current design does not focus on capturing information on migration, such data was collected once during the 2020-21 survey.
Experts say this will offer deeper insights from business as well as policy making perspective.
“This will enrich the tracking of economic activity and employment trends, given the diversity of India’s labour market across regions,” said Sakshi Gupta, principal economist at HDFC Bank.
A person is classified as a migrant if their current residence differs from their last usual place of residence.
“For many social welfare schemes, information on migration makes your targeting more efficient,” said Gupta.
Currently, the e-shram portal launched by the ministry of labour and employment tracks unorganised sector workers including migrants.
A 2024 report by the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council stated that the number of domestic migrants declined by 11.8% to 40.2 crore between 2011 and 2023. “This was on account of improved conditions and opportunities at the places of origin,” it noted.
In 2020-21, the overall migration rate was 28.9%, significantly higher among women at 47.9% compared to 10.7% for men, according to the PLFS data. For women, marriage was the key reason for migration, while for men it was employment. Across regions, urban areas recorded a higher migration rate of 34.9% than rural areas at 26.5%.
The ministry also aims to include age-disaggregated data on individuals not in employment, education or training (NEET) in the PLFS schedule from July, ET reported earlier.
