India - Employment and Unemployment : NSS 66th round, Schedule 10, July 2009 - June 2010

For persons of age 5 years and above, it is to be ascertained whether they were seeking/ available for work for some period during last 365 days. The period, which need not necessarily be continuous, for which the person was seeking/ available for work during last 365 days will be first rounded off to the nearest number of months and then appropriate code is to be given. For example, a person may be employed in his/ her principal usual activity status based on the major time criterion. But he/ she may have been looking for work for some period. Similarly, a girl may have been looking for job for sometime but subsequently got married and may be engaged in the domestic duties. The latter activity might have been pursued for a relatively longer period. In all such cases, one of the codes 1 to 5, applicable for the situation, will be given. If a person was not seeking or available for work any time during the preceding 365 days, the appropriate code will be 6.

The code structure for period of seeking/ availability for work is as given below:

sought/available for: less than 1 month -1, 1 month & above but less than 3 months -2, 3 months & above but less than 7 months -3, 7 months & above but less than 10 months -4, 10 months to 12 months - 5; did not seek/ not available -6.