India - Employment and Unemployment Survey: NSS 43rd Round : July 1987 - June 1988, Fourth Quinquennial Survey

It may be recalled that for determining the usual activity status of a person, the three broad categories of activities obtainable for a person (during the reference period) i.e., 'employment', 'unemployment' and the status of being 'not in the labour force are to be considered. Then, by adopting a 'relatively long time' spent criterion, one of the above three situation is assigned for the person. A person is considered to be economically active if he/she is either 'employed' for 'available for employment'(unemployment) and is considered to be usually economically active if during the 365 days preceding the date of survey, the period under 'employment' and unemployment' taken together for him/her is found to be more than (or equal to) the period for which he or she was not available for work (or not in labour force). It may be noted that for classifying a person either as 'usually economically active' or not, no additional information need be collected. The information already gathered for assigning the principal usual activity status will be used for the purpose.The investigator, based on the already collected information will decide whether the person is 'usually economically active' or not and record the appropriate code 1 or 2 in column (22).