NEW DELHI: India’s overall unemployment rate in November fell to 9.16% from a 29-month high of 10.05% in October, on account of a decline in unemployment in rural areas amidst the rabi-sowing season, according to data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE).
The rural unemployment rate eased to 9.05% in November from 10.82% the previous month, while the urban unemployment rate rose to 9.39% from 8.44%.
“The unemployment rate as per CMIE is still very high compared to the annual data from periodic labour force survey (PLFS) (by the labour ministry) at the end of last year. The monthly decline may simply reflect volatility around the harvest season,” said Abhishek Upadhyay, senior economist at ICICI Securities Primary Dealership.
November is usually the month when harvesting of the kharif paddy crop begins, and sowing of rabi-crops picks up.
Typically, the unemployment rate falls in November from October. Since 2019, the country’s overall unemployment rate has fallen sequentially every year in November, barring 2022, as per CMIE data. This coincides with the fall in unemployment rate in the rural areas. Unemployment rate in rural areas fell in November 2022 as well.
Lekha Chakraborty, professor, NIPFP, said: “In rural areas ‘self employment’ is on rise, which indeed is not a matter of celebration as the disaggregated data on self-employment shows that the small businesses are on the rise to avert livelihood crisis.”
Urban unemployment rate, on the other hand, rose to a three-month high of 9.39% in November. Experts have attributed this to the mass-layoffs that are happening in the formal sector.
Further, CMIE data showed that the labour participation rate (LPR) in November decreased to 41.11% from 41.65% in October. In urban India, the LPR declined to 38.85% in November from 39.36% in October, and in rural India, it fell to 42.27% from 42.83%.
Data released last week showed that India’s overall unemployment rate in urban areas, as per the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), remained unchanged at 6.6% in July-September quarter as compared to April-June, In July-September 2022, the urban unemployment rate was 7.2%.
In April-June, the unemployment rate of 6.6% was the lowest since the start of the PLFS-Urban series in FY18. Urban unemployment rate, as per the PLFS, ranged from 7.8-9.7% during the pre-pandemic period.
Source: The Financial Express
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