Factory survey estimates 2.10 crore people engaged. What happened to workers’ pay?
In 2024–25, the worker wage bill rose 13.03%. The calculated annual average per worker rose 5.34% before inflation.
India’s Annual Survey of Industries, released on 30 September, estimates an annual average of 2.10 crore people engaged in covered factories in 2024–25, up 14.08 lakh from the previous year’s estimate. The wage bill for the narrower group classified as workers rose 13.03%. Dividing that bill by the survey’s worker count gives an average of about ₹2.28 lakh in annual wages per worker, up 5.34% in rupees before adjusting for inflation.
These estimates describe April 2024 to March 2025, not the number of people hired in September 2026. The survey covers registered manufacturing and a few other industrial establishments; it does not count everyone making goods in India.
Two counts, one pay question
“Persons engaged” is the survey’s broad count. It includes production workers alongside supervisors, administrative staff and some working proprietors and unpaid family members. The separate “workers” row is the right denominator for the row showing wages paid to workers. The survey manual defines these measures using days worked over a factory’s working days, rather than tracking a fixed group of individual employees from one year to the next.
| Annual Survey of Industries estimate | 2023–24 | 2024–25 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Persons engaged | 1.96 crore | 2.10 crore | +7.19% |
| Workers | 1.55 crore | 1.67 crore | +7.31% |
| Wages paid to workers | ₹3.36 lakh crore | ₹3.80 lakh crore | +13.03% |
| Annual wages per worker, calculated | ₹2,16,487 | ₹2,28,037 | +5.34% |
Source: MoSPI’s ASI 2024–25 release, Table 3. The final row divides the reported wages paid to workers by the reported number of workers for each year; it is our calculation. The wage totals are converted from the release’s ₹ lakh units and rounded in this table.
The estimated number of workers rose 7.31%, so the larger wage bill was spread across more workers. The resulting 5.34% rise in the calculated average is a ratio across all recorded workers, not the raise received by someone who stayed in the same job. It does not show how wages were distributed between industries, states, permanent and contract workers, or pay levels.
What the factory total covers
The survey estimated 2,66,931 registered factories in 2024–25; 2,18,543 were operating. The larger total is therefore not a count of factories producing goods that year. Its employment and wage estimates apply to the covered registered sector, leaving unregistered workshops and home-based manufacturing outside this picture.
Factory work is also geographically concentrated. Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana together accounted for 56.22% of persons engaged in the 2024–25 estimate. That is their share of the workforce level, not a measure of where the 14.08-lakh increase occurred. The release’s national wage rows do not tell a worker in any of those states how their own pay changed.
The next annual survey can show whether the measured rise persisted. This one cannot tell whether workers’ wages kept pace with prices or how any gains were shared.
Image: Archival “Textile factory in Jaipur” (2019) by Ninara, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0; cropped.
