The statistics ministry plans to make changes to its Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) to better represent gig workers in its flagship labour market survey. Further changes have been proposed to understand the amount of unpaid household work done by family members and whether they want to do it.

The proposed changes, which are to come into effect from January onwards, have been outlined in a ‘concept note’ by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI). Comments and suggestions on the note have been invited by November 7.

As part of the revamp, households will be asked whether any member of the family worked with a digital platform such as Ola, Uber, Zomato , Amazon, and Urban Company, among others, over the last 365 days. This question will help create a new class, or what is called a Second Stage Stratum (SSS).

MoSPI began collecting information on digital platform workers – a subset of gig workers – on an experimental basis from January 2026.…