NEW DELHI: Delhi’s new winter pollution plan will require government and private offices to keep half their staff working from home from November 1, but latest labour data suggests that the measure can cover only a fraction of the city’s workforce.
The 2025 Periodic Labour Force Survey shows 54.7% of Delhi’s workers were in regular wage or salaried employment. If half of this entire group could work from home, the share would amount to 27.4% of all workers.
This is a hypothetical upper bound based on the broad employment categories available in PLFS. It assumes that all regular wage or salaried workers fall within offices covered by the measure and that their jobs can be performed remotely.
The remaining 45.3% were outside regular wage or salaried employment. Self-employed workers accounted for 39.1% of Delhi’s workforce, while casual labour accounted for 6.2%. The figures are for workers in usual status (principal status plus subsidiary status), which considers activity over the preceding 365 days.
The latest PLFS does not identify whether an individual job can be performed remotely. A regular wage or salaried worker in an office may be able to work from home, while one in a hospital, factory, shop or transport service may need to remain at the workplace.
Delhi’s employment structure further narrows the pool. NITI Aayog’s analysis of PLFS 2023-24 shows that services accounted for 71% of employment, or about 59 lakh workers. Manufacturing accounted for 16.5%, construction 9.6%, utilities 2.7% and agriculture 0.3%.
Within services, wholesale and retail trade alone accounted for 28.9% of employment, while transport and storage accounted for 11.2%. These figures show the size of the service economy, but they do not establish that service workers can work remotely.
The gender split also points to a narrower potential reach. Among Delhi’s urban male workers, 52% were regular wage or salaried employees in 2025, compared with 41.7% who were self-employed and 6.2% who were casual labourers.
The corresponding figures for urban women were 22.3% salaried, 73.1% self-employed and 4.6% casual labour. A 50% WFH rule applied uniformly to salaried workers would have a different reach across the two groups.
Delhi has used WFH during severe pollution episodes before. In November 2025, offices were directed to keep half their employees at home under higher GRAP restrictions. The new framework makes the measure part of a recurring winter policy rather than a response only to a single pollution episode.
Policy gap
Only 54.7% of Delhi’s workers are salaried
At most 27.4% of workers could be covered
45.3% are self-employed
Retail and transport employ 40.1% of workers
Many salaried jobs still require physical presence
Only 22.3% of urban women are salaried
WFH may affect only a fraction of workforce
