Empirical hope: What the PLFS says about Odisha

Purna Chandra Jena

In India, the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) has, since 2017-18, become the most reliable indicator for states to assess their labour markets. For Odisha — long stereotyped as a mineral-rich but job-scarce economy — the PLFS now reveals a markedly different picture. The Worker Population Ratio (WPR) for persons aged 15 and above rose from 47.6% in 2018-19 to 58.9% in 2022-23, according to the Ministry of Labour and Employment’s reply to the Lok Sabha. Over the same period, the Unemployment Rate (UR) on usual status fell from 7% to 3.9% — a substantial shift for an economy still transitioning out of an agrarian, informal base. The trajectory was not linear. WPR rose sharply during the pandemic (51.9% in 2019 20, 53.5% in 2020-21) due to reverse migration and MGN REGA absorption, dipped to 52.4% in 2021-22 as urban activity normalised, then climbed to 58.9% with expanding construction, mining-linked manufacturing and services. UR of 3.9% remained just above the national average of 3.2%, but a near-halving of joblessness over four years places Odisha among the more improved large-state performers. The most encouraging thread is the female Labour Force Participation Rate (FLFPR), at 44.7% in 2022-23 — above the national average and up sharply from 2021-22, according to NITI Aayog, echoing the national trend of the female WPR nearly doubling between 2017-18 and 2023-24.

Given Odisha’s weak historical base, the gain is meaningful, though much of it is in self-employment and unpaid family work rather than salaried roles. Sectorally, Odisha’s workforce in 2022-23 remained concentrated in agri-allied (48.1%), followed by services (26.1%), construction (17%), and manufacturing (8%). This is thin given the resource base: Odisha holds roughly a third of India’s iron ore reserves and over half its bauxite reserves, and annually produces around half the country’s iron ore and most of its bauxite. Downstream metals processing, the ports at Paradip and Dhamra, and plants tied to large investment pledges need tracking — the test is whether resource wealth translates into factory jobs, not just capital-intensive output. Here, the numbers demand candour, not celebration.

Even as overall unemployment fell, Odisha’s graduate unemployment rate stood at 21.9% in 2022-23 — the second-highest among larger states, behind only Rajasthan’s 23.1%. Youth unemployment (15-29 years) was 13.8%, also above the national average of 10.0%. The pattern is starker here than nationally: rural UR was just 3.6%, showing the economy absorbs low- and semi-skilled labour well, even as educated youth struggle to find matching work. This is the familiar “jobless graduate” problem — rising education without a matching supply of white-collar and technical jobs simply pushes unemployment up the ladder instead of eliminating it. A data gap is also worth flagging. From January 2025, PLFS shifted from a July-June agricultural year to a January-December calendar year, nearly tripling its household sample to about 2.72 lakh and making the district, not the state, the primary sampling stratum. The first report under this redesign, PLFS 2025, was released in March 2026, with reassuring national toplines — LFPR 59.3%, WPR 57.4%, UR 3.1%, youth unemployment easing to 9.9%. But MoSPI has been explicit that the redesign breaks comparability with the older series, and state-wise tables, including for Odisha, were not yet available at the time of writing. A state government cannot fine-tune skilling and employment schemes on national averages alone; the Centre should expedite state- and district-level PLFS 2025 releases, since district-level sampling was the rationale for the redesign. Odisha’s own record — rising WPR, falling UR, and female participation above the national average — is genuine and worth acknowledging.

But the graduate-unemployment paradox warns that overall job growth does not automatically translate into the right kind of jobs for an increasingly educated young population. Institutions such as the Odisha Skill Development Authority, the World Skill Centre in Bhubaneswar, and ITI upgrades linked to metals and green-energy investment must be judged by employment and wage outcomes, not enrolment. As Odisha pursues Viksit Odisha @2036 alongside the national Viksit Bharat goal, the next two or three PLFS cycles will show whether its investment boom is creating the jobs its graduates are seeking.

The writer is an economic advisor in the Chief Minister’s Office, Government of Uttarakhand.