India - Employment and Unemployment, July 2011- June 2012, NSS 68th Round

Economic activity: The entire spectrum of human activity falls into two categories: economic activity and non-economic activity. Any activity that results in production of goods and services that adds value to national product is considered as an economic activity. The economic activities have two parts - market activities and non-market activities. Market activities are those that involve remuneration to those who perform it, i.e., activity performed for pay or profit. Such activities include produc­tion of all goods and services for market including those of government services, etc. Non-market activities are those involving the production of primary commodities for own consumption and own account production of fixed assets.

The full spectrum of economic activities as defined in the UN System of National Accounts is not covered in the definition adopted for the Employment and Unemployment surveys of NSSO. Production of any good for own consumption is considered as economic activity by UN System of National Accounts but production of only primary goods for own consumption is considered as economic activity by NSSO. While the former includes activities like own account processing of primary products among other things, in the NSS surveys, processing of primary products for own consumption is not considered as economic activity. However, it may be noted that 'production of agricultural goods for own consumption' covering all activities up to and including stages of thrashing and storing of produce for own consumption, comes under the coverage of the economic activities of NSSO.

The term 'economic activity' in the Employment and Unemployment survey of NSSO in this round will include:

(i) all the market activities described above, i.e., the activities performed for pay or profit which result in production of goods and services for exchange,

(ii) of the non-market activities,

(a) all the activities relating to the primary sector (i.e., industry Divisions 01 to 14 of NIC-2004) which result in production (including free collection of uncultivated crops, forestry, firewood, hunting, fishing, mining, quarrying, etc.) of primary goods, including thrashing and storing of grains for own consumption.
and

(b) the activities relating to the own-account production of fixed assets. Own account production of fixed assets include construction of own houses, roads, wells, etc., and of machinery, tools, etc., for household enterprise and also construction of any private or community facilities free of charge. A person may be engaged in own account construction in the capacity of either a labourer or a supervisor.

Determination of economic activities described above will be done irrespective of the situation whether such activity is carried out illegally in the form of smuggling or not. However, by convention, as in earlier rounds, the activities like prostitution, begging, etc., which may result in earnings, will not be considered as economic activities.

Activity status: It is the activity situation in which a person is found during a reference period, which concerns the person's participation in economic and non-economic activities. According to this, a person will be in one or a combination of the following three statuses during a reference period:

(i) Working or being engaged in economic activity (work),

(ii) Being not engaged in economic activity (work) and either making tangible efforts to seek 'work' or being available for 'work' if the 'work' is available and

(iii) Being not engaged in any economic activity (work) and also not available for 'work'.

Activity statuses, as mentioned in (i) & (ii) above, are associated with 'being in labour force' and the last with 'not being in the labour force'. Within the labour force, activity status (i) above is associated with 'employment' and that of (ii) above with 'unemployment'. The three broad activity statuses have been further sub-divided into several detailed activity categories. These are stated below:

(i) working or being engaged in economic activity (employed):

(a) worked in household enterprise (self-employed) as an own-account worker
(b) worked in household enterprise (self-employed) as an employer
(c) worked in household enterprise (self-employed) as 'helper'
(d) worked as regular wage/ salaried employee
(e) worked as casual wage labour in public works other than National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG) works
(f) worked as casual wage labour in National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG) works
(g) worked as casual wage labour in other types of works
(h) did not work due to sickness though there was work in household enterprise
(i) did not work due to other reasons though there was work in household enterprise
(j) did not work due to sickness but had regular wage/ salaried employment
(k) did not work due to other reasons but had regular wage/ salaried employment

(ii) not working but seeking or available for work (unemployed) :

(a) sought work
(b) did not seek but was available for work

(iii) not working and also not available for work (not in labour force) :

(a) attended educational institution
(b) attended domestic duties only
(c) attended domestic duties and was also engaged in free collection of goods,
tailoring, weaving, etc., for household use
(d) recipients of rent, pension, remittance, etc.
(e) not able to work due to disability
(f) others
(g) did not work due to sickness (for casual workers only).

The various constituents of 'employed, 'unemployed', 'labour force', 'out of labour force' are as explained below:

(a) Workers (or employed): Persons who, during the reference period, are engaged in any economic activity or who, despite their attachment to economic activity, have temporarily abstained from work for reasons of illness, injury or other physical disability, bad weather, festivals, social or religious functions or other contingencies constitute workers. Unpaid helpers who assist in the operation of an economic activity in the household farm or non-farm activities are also considered as workers. All the workers are assigned one of the detailed activity status under the broad activity category 'working or being engaged in economic activity'.

(b) Seeking or available for work (or unemployed): Persons, who, during the reference period, owing to lack of work, had not worked but either sought work through employment exchanges, intermediaries, friends or relatives or by making applications to prospective employers or expressed their willingness or availability for work under the prevailing condition of work and remuneration are considered as those who are 'seeking or available for work' (or unemployed).

(c) Labour force: Persons who are either 'working' (or employed) or 'seeking or available for work' (or unemployed) during the reference period together constitute the labour force.

(d) Out of labour force: Persons who are neither 'working' and at the same time nor 'seeking or available for work' for various reasons during the reference period are considered to be 'out of labour force'. The persons under this category are students, those engaged in domestic duties, rentiers, pensioners, recipients of remittances, those living on alms, infirm or disabled persons, too young or too old persons, prostitutes, etc. and casual labourers not working due to sickness.

It may be noted that workers have been further categorized as self-employed, regular wage/ salaried employee and casual wage labourer. These categories are defined in the following paragraphs.

Self-employed: Persons who operate their own farm or non-farm enterprises or are engaged independently in a profession or trade on own-account or with one or a few partners are deemed to be self-employed in household enterprises. The essential feature of the self-employed is that they have autonomy (i.e., how, where and when to produce) and economic independence (i.e., market, scale of operation and money) for carrying out their operation. The remuneration of the self-employed consists of a non-separable combination of two parts: a reward for their labour and profit of their enterprise. The combined remuneration is given by the revenue from sale of output produced by self-employed persons minus the cost of purchased inputs in production.

The self-employed persons may again be categorised into the following three groups:

(i) own-account workers: They are the self-employed who operate their enterprises on their own account or with one or a few partners and who during the reference period by and large, run their enterprise without hiring any labour. They may, however, have unpaid helpers to assist them in the activity of the enterprise.

(ii) employers: The self-employed persons who work on their own account or with one or a few partners and by and large run their enterprise by hiring labour are the employers, and

(iii) helpers in household enterprise: The helpers are a category of self-employed persons mostly family members who keep themselves engaged in their household enterprises, working full or part time and do not receive any regular salary or wages in return for the work performed. They do not run the household enterprise on their own but assist the related person living in the same household in running the household enterprise.

There is a category of workers who work at a place of their choice which is outside the establishment that employs them or buys their product. Different expressions like 'home workers', 'home based workers' and 'out workers' are generally used synonymously for such workers. For the purpose of this survey, all such workers will be categorised as 'self-employed'. The 'home workers' have some degree of autonomy and economic independence in carrying out the work, and their work is not directly supervised, as is the case for the employees. Like the other self-employed, these workers have to meet certain costs, like actual or imputed rent on the buildings in which they work, costs incurred for heating, lighting and power, storage or transportation, etc., thereby indicating that they have some tangible or intangible means of production. It may be noted that employees are not required to provide such inputs for production.

It may further be elaborated that the 'putting out' system prevalent in the production process in which a part of production which is 'put out' is performed in different household enterprises (and not at the employers establishment). For example, bidi rollers obtaining orders from a bidi manufacturer will be considered as home workers irrespective of whether or not they were supplied raw material (leaves, masala, etc.), equipment (scissors) and other means of production. The fee or remuneration received consists of two parts - the share of their labour and profit of the enterprise. In some cases, the payment may be based on piece rate. Similarly, a woman engaged in tailoring or embroidery work on order from a wholesaler, or making pappad on order from some particular unit/ contractor/ trader at her home will be treated as 'home worker'. On the other hand, if she does the work in the employers premises, she will be treated as employee. Again, if she is not undertaking these activities on orders from outside, but markets the products by herself/ other household members for profit, she will be considered as an own account worker, if of course, she does not employ any hired help more or less on a regular basis.

Regular wage/ salaried employee: Persons working in other's farm or non-farm enterprises (both household and non-household) and getting in return salary or wages on a regular basis (and not on the basis of daily or periodic renewal of work contract) are the regular wage/ salaried employees. This category not only includes persons getting time wage but also persons receiving piece wage or salary and paid apprentices, both full time and part-time.

Casual wage labour: A person casually engaged in other's farm or non-farm enterprises (both household and non-household) and getting in return wage according to the terms of the daily or periodic work contract is a casual wage labour. Usually, in the rural areas, one category of casual labourers can be seen who normally engage themselves in 'public works' activities. The concepts related to 'public works' are discussed later in this chapter.

Different approaches for determining activity status: The persons surveyed are to be classified into various activity categories on the basis of activities pursued by them during certain specified reference periods. There are three reference periods for this survey viz. (i) one year, (ii) one week and (iii) each day of the reference week. Based on these three periods, three different measures of activity status are arrived at. These are termed respectively as usual status, current weekly status and current daily status. The activity status determined on the basis of the reference period of 1 year is known as the usual activity status of a person, that determined on the basis of a reference period of 1 week is known as the current weekly status (CWS) of the person and the activity status determined on the basis of each day of the reference week is known as the current daily status (CDS) of the person.

Identification of each individual into a unique situation poses a problem when more than one of three types of broad activity status viz. 'employed', 'unemployed' and 'not in labour force' is concurrently obtained for a person. In such an eventuality, unique identification under any one of the three broad activity status is done by adopting either the major time criterion or priority criterion. The former is used for classification of persons under 'usual activity status' and, the latter, for classification of persons under 'current activity status'. If, by adopting one of these two criteria, a person categorised as engaged in economic activity is found to be pursuing more than one economic activity during the reference period, the appropriate detailed activity status category will relate to the activity in which relatively more time has been spent. Similar approach is adopted for non-economic activities also.

Usual activity status: The usual activity status relates to the activity status of a person during the reference period of 365 days preceding the date of survey. The activity status on which a person spent relatively longer time (major time criterion) during the 365 days preceding the date of survey is considered the usual principal activity status of the person. To decide the usual principal activity of a person, he/ she is first categorised as belonging to the labour force or not, during the reference period on the basis of major time criterion. Persons, thus, adjudged as not belonging to the labour force are assigned the broad activity status 'neither working nor available for work'. For the persons belonging to the labour force, the broad activity status of either 'working' or 'not working but seeking and/ or available for work' is then ascertained again on the basis of the relatively longer time spent in the labour force during the 365 days preceding the date of survey. Within the broad activity status so determined, the detailed activity status category of a person pursuing more than one such activity will be determined again on the basis of the relatively longer time spent.

Subsidiary economic activity status: A person whose principal usual status is determined on the basis of the major time criterion may have pursued some economic activity for 30 days or more during the reference period of 365 days preceding the date of survey. The status in which such economic activity is pursued during the reference period of 365 days preceding the date of survey is the subsidiary economic activity status of the person. In case of multiple subsidiary economic activities, the major activity and status based on the relatively longer time spent criterion will be considered. It may be noted that engagement in work in subsidiary capacity may arise out of the two following situations:

i) a person may be engaged in a relatively longer period during the 365 days in economic (non-economic activity) and for a relatively minor period, which is not less than 30 days, in another economic activity (any economic activity).

(ii) a person may be pursuing an economic activity (non-economic activity) almost throughout the year in the principal status and also simultaneously pursuing another economic activity (any economic activity) for relatively shorter time in a subsidiary capacity. In such cases, since both the activities are being pursued throughout the year and hence the duration of both the activities are more than 30 days, the activity which is being pursued for a relatively shorter time will be considered as his/ her subsidiary activity.

Current weekly activity status: The current weekly activity status of a person is the activity status obtaining for a person during a reference period of 7 days preceding the date of survey. It is decided on the basis of a certain priority cum major time criterion. According to the priority criterion, the status of 'working' gets priority over the status of 'not working but seeking or available for work', which in turn gets priority over the status of 'neither working nor available for work'. A person is considered working (or employed)) if he/ she, while pursuing any economic activity, had worked for at least one hour on at least one day during the 7 days preceding the date of survey. A person is considered 'seeking or available for work (or unemployed)' if during the reference week no economic activity was pursued by the person but he/ she made efforts to get work or had been available for work any time during the reference week though not actively seeking work in the belief that no work was available. A person who had neither worked nor was available for work any time during the reference week, is considered to be engaged in non-economic activities (or not in labour force). Having decided the broad current weekly activity status of a person on the basis of 'priority' criterion, the detailed current weekly activity status is again decided on the basis of 'major time' criterion if a person is pursuing multiple economic activities.

Current daily activity status: The activity pattern of the population, particularly in the unorganised sector, is such that during a week, and sometimes, even during a day, a person can pursue more than one activity. Moreover, many people can even undertake both economic and non-economic activities on the same day of a reference week. The current daily activity status for a person is determined on the basis of his/ her activity status on each day of the reference week using a priority-cum-major time criterion (day to day labour time disposition). The following points may be noted for determining the current daily status of a person:

i) Each day of the reference week is looked upon as comprising of either two 'half days' or a 'full day' for assigning the activity status.

ii) A person is considered 'working' (employed) for the entire day if he/ she had worked for 4 hours or more during the day.

iii) If a person was engaged in more than one of the economic activities for 4 hours or more on a day, he/ she would be assigned two economic activities out of the different economic activities on which he/ she devoted relatively longer time on the reference day. In such cases, one 'half day' work will be considered for each of those two economic activities (i.e., 0.5 intensity will be given for each of these two economic activities).

iv) If the person had worked for 1 hour or more but less than 4 hours, he/ she is considered 'working' (employed) for half-day and 'seeking or available for work' (unemployed) or 'neither seeking nor available for work' (not in labour force) for the other half of the day depending on whether he was seeking/ available for work or not.

v) If a person was not engaged in 'work' even for 1 hour on a day but was seeking/ available for work even for 4 hours or more, he/ she is considered 'unemployed' for the entire day. But if he/ she was 'seeking/ available for work' for more than 1 hour and less than 4 hours only, he/ she is considered 'unemployed' for half day and 'not in labour force' for the other half of the day.

vi) A person who neither had any 'work' to do nor was available for 'work' even for half a day was considered 'not in labour force' for the entire day and is assigned one or two of the detailed non-economic activity status depending upon the activities pursued by him/ her during the reference day.

It may be noted that while assigning intensity, an intensity of 1.0 will be given against an activity which is done for 'full day' and 0.5, if it is done for 'half day'.

Nominal work: Work done by a person for 1 - 2 hours in a day during the reference week is said to be a day with nominal work for the person. In the day-to-day labour time disposition of the reference week, such a day's work is considered to be 'half-days' work (and it gets half intensity while accounting).

Operation: It is the type of work performed by a person during a reference period such as manual, non-manual, agricultural, non-agricultural, etc. Operation has been combined with activity status and industry corresponding to the work performed. Information regarding the type of operation is collected only for rural areas and relating to current status only. The different types of operations are - ploughing, sowing, transplanting, weed­ing, harvesting, others (manual) and others (non-manual). In the last two cases, the sector in which the work is performed is indicated by the industry. It may be noted, that for 'regular wage/ salaried employees' on leave or on holiday, the 'operation' relates to their respective function in the work or job from which he/ she is temporarily off. Similarly, for persons categorised as 'self-employed' but not working on a particular day in spite of having work on that day, the operation will relate to the work that he/ she would have done if he/ she had not enjoyed leisure on that day.

Manual work: A job essentially involving physical labour is considered as manual work. However, jobs essentially involving physical labour but also requiring a certain level of general, professional, scientific or technical education are not to be termed as 'manual work'. On the other hand, jobs not involving much of physical labour and at the same time not requiring much educational (general, scientific, technical or otherwise) background are to be treated as 'manual work'. Thus, engineers, doctors, dentists, midwives, etc., are not considered manual workers even though their jobs involve some amount of physical labour. But, peons, chowkidars, watchman, etc. are considered manual workers even though their work might not involve much physical labour. A few examples of manual workers are cooks, waiters, building caretakers, sweepers, cleaners and related workers, launderers, dry cleaners and pressers, hair dressers, barbers, beauticians, watchmen, gate keepers, agricultural labourers, plantation labourers and related workers

Rural Labour: Manual labour working in agricultural and/ or non-agricultural occupations in return for wages paid either in cash or in kind (excluding exchange labour) and living in rural areas, will be taken as rural labour.

Agricultural labour: A person will be considered to be engaged as agricultural labour, if he/ she follows one or more of the following agricultural occupations in the capacity of a wage paid manual labour, whether paid in cash or kind or both:

(i) farming
(ii) dairy farming
(iii) production of any horticultural commodity
(iv) raising of livestock, bees or poultry
(v) any practice performed on a farm as incidental to or in conjunction with farm operations (including forestry and timbering) and the preparation for market and delivery to storage or to market or to carriage for transportation to market of farm produce. Further, 'carriage for transportation' refers only to the first stage of the transport from farm to the first place of disposal.

Working in fisheries is excluded from agricultural labour.

Wage-paid manual labour: A person who does manual work in return for wages in cash or kind or partly in cash and partly in kind (excluding exchange labour) is a wage paid manual labour. Salaries are also to be counted as wages. A person who is self-employed in manual work is not treated as a wage paid manual labour.

Cultivation: All activities relating to production of crops and related ancillary activities are considered as cultivation. Growing of trees, plants or crops as plantation or orchards (such as rubber, cashew, coconut, pepper, coffee, tea etc.) are not considered as cultivation activities for the purpose of this survey. In general, the activities covered under NIC-2004 sub-classes 01111, 01112, 01113, 01115, 01119, 01121, 01122 and 01135 (excepting plantation of pepper and cardamom) are to be considered as cultivation.

Homestead land: (i) Homestead of a household is defined as the dwelling house of the household together with the courtyard, compound, garden, out-house, place of worship, family graveyard, guest house, shop, workshop and offices for running household enterprises, tanks, wells, latrines, drains and boundary walls annexed to the dwelling house. All land coming under homestead is defined as homestead land.

(ii) Homestead may constitute only a part of a plot. Sometimes, gardens, orchards or plantations, though adjacent to the homestead and lying within the boundary walls, may be located on a clearly distinct piece of land. In such cases, land under garden, orchard or plantation will not be considered as homestead land.

Earnings: Earnings refer to the wage/ salary income (and not total earnings from other sources) receivable for the wage/ salaried work done during the reference week by the wage/ salaried employees and casual labourers. The wage/ salary already received or receivable may be in cash or kind or partly in cash and partly in kind. For recording the wages and salaries:

i) The kind wages are evaluated at the respective current retail price.

ii) Bonus (expected or paid) and perquisites evaluated at respective retail prices and duly apportioned for the reference week are also included in earnings.

iii) For any economic activity, amount received or receivable as 'over-time' for the additional work done beyond normal working time is excluded.

For each of the members, the usual principal activity status will be recorded in this column. In the first instance, the broad usual principal activity of the person will be identified based on the various activities pursued by the person during the reference period of last 365 days adopting a 'relatively long time (or major time)' criterion, not necessarily for a continuous period. The broad usual principal activity status will be one of the three categories viz. 'employed' (working), 'unemployed' (available for work) or 'not in labour force' (neither working nor available for work). It is to be noted that in deciding this, only the period normally available in a day for pursuing various activities need to be considered, and not the 24 hours of a day.

The broad usual principal activity status will be obtained on the basis of a two stage dichotomous classification depending on the major time spent. Persons will be classified in the first stage into (i) those who are engaged in any economic activity (i.e. employed) and / or available for any economic activity (i.e., unemployed) and (ii) who are not engaged and also not available for any economic activity (i.e., not in labour force). Thus, the persons will be first classified as those in the labour force and those not in the labour force depending on in which status, out of these two, the person spent major part of the year. In the second stage, those who are found in the labour force will be further classified into working (i.e., engaged in economic activity or employed) and seeking and/or available for work (i.e., unemployed) based on the major time spent. Thus, we can obtain the broad usual principal status as one of the three viz. employed, unemployed and out of labour force.
With the broad activity status identified for a person, detailed activity categories will be assigned on the basis of relatively longer time spent on a detailed activity. For example, suppose person A, in the example given above worked in household enterprises without hiring labour for 3 months and worked as casual labour for 2 months, then his usual principal activity status would be, worked in household enterprise (own account worker).

The detailed usual principal status activity codes are as given below:
worked in h.h. enterprise (self-employed): own account worker -11, employer-12, worked as helper in h.h. enterprise (unpaid family worker) -21; worked as regular salaried/ wage employee -31, worked as casual wage labour: in public works -41, in other types of work -51; did not work but was seeking and/or available for work -81, attended educational institution -91, attended domestic duties only -92, attended domestic duties and was also engaged in free collection of goods (vegetables, roots, firewood, cattle feed, etc.), sewing, tailoring, weaving, etc. for household use -93, rentiers, pensioners , remittance recipients, etc. -94, not able to work due to disability -95, others (including begging, prostitution, etc.) -97.

Some special cases for determining usual principal activity status are listed below:

(i) It is to be noted that availability for work being more of a status than an activity, a person being available for work may well be engaged in one or more of the activities denoted by codes 91 to 97. In all such cases except those engaged as students (code 91), persons will be categorised as 'unemployed' if he/she reports to be available for work for a relatively longer period, inspite of his/her being engaged simultaneously in a non-economic activity. But, if a person who is available for work is reported to have attended educational institution more or less regularly for a relatively longer period during the preceding 365 days, further probing as to whether he will give up the study if the job is available is to be made before considering him as 'unemployed'.

(ii) Again, it also needs to be emphasised that the procedure to be followed in ascertaining the activity status of a domestic servant who is a member of the employer's household is different from that adopted for other members of the household. It may be noted that engagement in domestic duties by such household members is not considered economic activity as defined for the survey. On the other hand, although a domestic servant staying in the employer's household and taking food from the common kitchen is, by definition, a member of the employer's household, he/she is also engaged in domestic duties in return for wages in cash and/or kind. Thus, as a special case, domestic duties pursued by a domestic servant will be considered as an economic activity and the activity status code as is applicable will be assigned to him/her.

(iii) Carpenters, masons, plumbers, etc., who move from place to place in search of work and carry out the work on a contract basis (not on wage basis) whenever work is available, will be considered as 'own-account worker'. But if such persons are working on a wage basis under a contractor, they will be considered as employee.



Some Important Clarifications for determining activity status:

1. Production of primary goods for own consumption is considered as economic activity. It may be noted that 'production of agricultural goods for own consumption' covers all activities up to and including stages of thrashing and storing of produce.
2. Engagement in domestic duties by a member of the household is not considered economic activity but the domestic duties performed by the domestic servant staying in the employer's household and taking food from the common kitchen and thereby being a member of the household is to be considered as an economic activity, as a special case. Activity status code 31 will be assigned to domestic servants.
3. Free collection for sale' will be treated as self-employment. In the case of primary products in the agricultural sector, even if the products collected are not for sale but for household consumption, persons engaged in these activities will be considered as self-employed. If the products collected relate to agricultural sector, the NIC-2004 section will be 'A' and for other goods like rag, waste paper, tins, etc., the NIC-2004 section will be 'G'.
4. A disabled person/ pensioner will be considered as 'employed' according to usual principal status if he/she is engaged in an economic activity for a relatively long time during the reference year. He/she will be treated as unemployed if reported to be seeking/available for work for a relatively long time during the reference year, and not as a disabled person/pensioner.
5. Any person carrying out domestic duty for major part of the day and additionally doing some economic activity for three/ four hours in a day, both on a regular basis, will be considered as engaged in domestic duties according to the usual principal status. Similarly, a pensioner/ student doing agricultural activities in household agricultural enterprise for three/ four hours in a day, his usual principal activity status will be pensioner/ student, and not worker in the usual principal status. However, according to the usual status considering principal status and subsidiary status together, they will be considered as worker.
6. Sometimes it is found that a regular student is currently on live register of the Employment Exchange and such a situation creates confusion in deciding his usual activity status. Normally, the person will be categorised as a student. But before categorising him/her as a student, further probes should be made as to whether he/she will give up his/her studies the moment he/she gets a job. If it is found that he/she will leave his studies to take up the type of job for which he/she has registered, he/she will be considered as unemployed.
7. Current weekly activity status of a student/ disabled person/ pensioner/person engaged in domestic duties will be 'employed' if he/she is engaged in an economic activity for at least 1 hour on any day during the reference week (i.e at least 0.5 intensity against any of the activity status codes 11 to 72 in column 14 of block 5.3).
8. A Government servant who is on extraordinary leave or suspended, his/her usual principal status code will be 31. Other economic activities pursued by him/her during the period will not be considered for determining his usual principal activity status but those activities will be considered as subsidiary economic activities.
9. According to the current status approach, for a regular salaried/wage employee, activity status code 31 is to be given on holidays and code 71/72 for the days he is on leave depending on the reason. Additional economic activity carried out on these days by a regular wage/ salaried employee will not be considered to determine his current daily status, e.g., for a Govt. employee who is on leave for 1 week and does agricultural activity during that week, his current daily status code for all the 7 days of the week will be 72.

10. According to the current status approach, for a self-employed person, activity status code 11 is to be given on holidays or weekly-off days and code 61 or 62 for the days he is on leave depending on the reason.
11. If a casual worker works for 4 days in a week and remains without work for the other 3 days, then for the days he did not work, his current activity status codes will be 81, 82 or any of 91 to 98 depending upon the situation on those days.
12. For regular salaried/wage employees on leave or holiday, the 'operation' will relate to their respective function in the work or job from which he is temporarily off in view of his taking leave or holiday. Similarly for persons categorised 'self-employed' (status codes 11, 12 & 21) if they are not at work on a particular day inspite of their having work on that day, operation to be recorded will relate to the work they would have done if they had not enjoyed leisure on that day.
13. If a person performed 3 economic activities in a day then number of hours spent on each activity is to be considered to assign intensity for the different activities.
a. If only 1 of the activities is done for 4 hours or more, 1.0 intensity to be given for that activity.
b. If any of the 2 activities are done for 4 hours or more, then 0.5 intensity is to be given to each of these two activities.
c. If all activities are done for more than 4 hours then two of the activities by major time criteria (MTC) will be given intensity 0.5.
d. If all the activities are performed for less than 4 hours but the total is more than 4 hours then 2 activities by MTC will be assigned 0.5 intensity.
e. If all the activities are performed for less than 4 hours and the total is less than 4 hours but more than 1 hour, then 1 activity by MTC will be assigned 0.5 intensity.
14. If a person is engaged in 2 economic activities each of less than 1 hour duration but the total duration is 1 to 4 hours, then one of the activities will be assigned intensity 0.5 by MTC.
15. When a female casual labourer reports that she is not able to work due to pregnancy, she will be treated as 'casual labour not working due to sickness' and will be given current activity code 98.
16. Exchange labour will be considered as 'self-employed'. But a regular employee, on holiday or while on leave, working as 'exchange labour', will be assigned status code 31/71/72. On the other hand, a casual labourer working as 'exchange labour' on some days will be categorised as 'self-employed' for those days.
17. The 'meal carriers' (who collects meals from respective households and delivers the same at various offices), 'night watchmen' of a locality, 'cowherd', etc., are normally employed by a group of households on a regular monthly wage. The 'activity status' of such workers will be the same as that of maid servant/male servant, etc., i.e., 'wage/salaried employee'.
18. Carpenters, masons, plumbers, etc., who in their professional rounds, move from place to place in search of work and carry out the work on contract basis whenever work is available will be considered as own account worker. But if such persons are working on a wage basis or so under a contractor or for a household, they will be considered as regular salaried/wage employee.

19. Unpaid apprentices will be treated as 'students' while paid apprentices will be treated as employees.
20. Persons under 'paid lay-off' will be considered 'employed'. Those under 'unpaid lay off' will not be considered as employed and they will be considered 'unemployed' if they are seeking and/or available for work. Persons who are under lay-off without any payment from the establishment but gets some benefits from other sources because of the lay-off will not be considered as worker.
21. MPs and MLAs will be considered as regular salaried worker. Party functionaries not getting salaries are not to be considered as economically active if they are not engaged in any other economic activity.
22. A porter/ coolie in their professional rounds in search of jobs contracts with several clients for the amount of remuneration depending upon the quantity and volume of goods to be carried for a given distance. Thus in a day, he/ she, in fact, serves several clients and generally, posses some tangible assets to perform these activities. Moreover, they decide the scale of operation of their own. In view of this, a porter/ coolie may be considered as self-employed and may be given the industry code 93093 as per NIC-2004.
23. Renting of machinery and equipment, building for residential or non-residential purposes is considered as economic activity, if those are performed as a business activity, for which substantial amount of time is spent.