WEB DESK
India’s unemployment rate in October rose to 8.5%, highest level since Aug 2016, according to data released by Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) on Friday.
According to CMIE, urban unemployment rate for Oct 2019 stood at 8.9%, slightly higher than rural unemployment rate of 8.3%.The chart below shows the unemployment trend since Janu2016, when CMIE began estimating unemployment.Among States, Tripura and Haryana saw unemployment levels of more than 20% (the highest), while the unemployment was the lowest in Tamil Nadu at 1.1%.
Rajasthan saw its unemployment rate double between September and Oct 2019.CMIE’s figures are in line with the findings of the latest Periodic Labour Force Survey, which had estimated an unemployment rate of 6.1% between July 2017 and June 2018, the worst in 45 years.The data also comes on the back of other indicators showing a downturn in the economy, including the core sector output in September posting its worst contraction in at least 14 years.
Earlier, August’s industrial output shrank at its fastest rate in more than six years.A working paper titled, ‘India’s Employment Crisis’ by researchers at the Centre for Sustainable Employment estimates that between 2011-12 and 2017-18, employment declined by an unprecedented nine million jobs (a 2% drop), with agricultural employment declining by 11.5%.In the same period, employment in the service sector increased by 13.4%, while manufacturing employment dipped by 5.7%.