Daily Static Quiz Prelims Practice 2027
In disguised unemployment, the marginal productivity of the extra workers is zero or close to it, a situation common in Indian agriculture where family members share work on small farms. Frictional unemployment is short-term unemployment while people move between jobs, structural unemployment is a mismatch between workers’ skills and available jobs due to changes in the economy, and cyclical unemployment is caused by downturns in the business cycle.
- Statement 1: The Periodic Labour Force Survey is conducted by the National Statistics Office under MoSPI.
- Statement 2: Under the Current Weekly Status approach, the reference period for determining a person’s activity status is the preceding seven days.
Statement 1 is correct — the PLFS, launched in 2017, is conducted by the NSO under MoSPI and provides quarterly urban estimates and annual estimates. Statement 2 is correct — Current Weekly Status (CWS) uses the preceding 7 days as the reference period, while Usual Status uses 365 days.
Statement (d) is incorrect — cyclical unemployment rises during recessions and downturns, when demand falls, and declines during booms. The other statements are correct: frictional unemployment exists even in healthy economies, structural unemployment often follows technological or sectoral change, and seasonal unemployment arises because farm work is concentrated in the sowing and harvesting periods.
- Assertion (A): The unemployment rate is calculated as a percentage of the labour force, not of the total population.
- Reason (R): The labour force includes all persons above 15 years of age, whether or not they are seeking work.
A is correct — the Unemployment Rate = (Unemployed ÷ Labour Force) × 100. R is incorrect — the labour force comprises only persons who are working or seeking or available for work, so those not seeking work, such as students, homemakers and retirees, fall outside the labour force whatever their age.
- The Labour Force Participation Rate is the labour force expressed as a percentage of the population.
- The Worker Population Ratio is the number of employed persons expressed as a percentage of the population.
- Under the Usual Status approach, the reference period is the preceding 365 days.
- MGNREGA guarantees 150 days of wage employment in a financial year to every rural household.
Statements 1 and 2 are correct — LFPR = (labour force ÷ population) × 100 and WPR = (employed ÷ population) × 100. Statement 3 is correct — Usual Status uses a 365-day reference period, while CWS uses 7 days. Statement 4 is incorrect — MGNREGA (2005) guarantees 100 days of wage employment per rural household per year, though some States provide additional days, for example in drought-affected areas.
