India plans to change the sampling design of its Periodic Labour Force Survey from January 2027 after an experimental exercise failed to identify enough digital platform workers. The National Statistics Office, under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, announced the proposed changes on October 23 and invited comments on the revised procedure. The new system will use a separate sampling stratum for digital platform workers as part of the next two-year survey panel covering 2027-28.
Under the proposed schedule, an additional yes-or-no question will identify households in which at least one member has engaged in digital platform work during the specified reference period. The question will be asked in rural and urban households, allowing eligible households to be selected for the new platform-worker sample.
The revision is aimed at workers whose jobs are arranged through digital services, including app-based drivers and delivery workers. It also forms part of a broader survey expansion that will collect information on unpaid household production, caregiving, volunteer activity and unpaid trainee work from people aged 15 and above during the first survey visit.
The need for better measurement comes as India’s gig economy is projected to expand. A NITI Aayog study estimated about 68 lakh gig workers in 2019-20 and projected 2. 35 crore by 2029-30. That estimate was produced indirectly from workers with characteristics associated with gig work, and the study cautioned that it may not represent the sector’s exact size.
Gig workers and platform workers are overlapping but distinct groups. Gig work covers work outside a conventional employer-employee relationship, while platform work refers specifically to jobs obtained or performed through digital platforms. As a result, platform registrations cannot be used as a count of all gig workers. On March 10, Maharashtra had 1. 38 lakh platform workers registered on e-Shram, followed by Uttar Pradesh with 1. 34 lakh, Bihar with 1. 12 lakh, West Bengal with 56,236 and Delhi with 50,636. Those figures represent registered workers, not the complete platform workforce in each state.