The number of people who remained unemployed for a major part of the year is called

The correct answer is A) Usual status unemployment. Under the NSSO framework, a person's usual status is judged over a reference period of 365 days. If someone's main activity status is unemployed for the major part of the year, that is usual status unemployment. This is the long-term, chronic measure of joblessness.

• B) Daily status is wrong. It records a person's activity on each day of a short reference week, in half-day units, so it captures day-to-day fluctuation rather than the year-long pattern.
• C) Weekly status is wrong. It asks whether a person did any work for at least one hour on any day of the reference week. It is a short-term snapshot, not a year-long classification.
• D) None of the above is wrong because option A matches the definition.

The concept sits in the labour-force statistics that feed Economic Survey and planning debates on employment and the difference between seasonal and chronic joblessness. Mains answers on the employment challenge and the reliability of labour data benefit from knowing these three measures. Note that since the PLFS began in 2017-18, the headline unemployment rate has been the current weekly status measure, while usual status is still reported alongside it.

Trap: aspirants pick weekly status because it sounds more precise. The question asks for the year-long measure, so read the reference period carefully.