Labour markets showed positive momentum in August as the unemployment rate fell for the second consecutive month to a four-month low of 5.1 per cent from 5.2 per cent in July.
It was on account of the start of the sowing season.
The headline unemployment rate for people of age 15 and above in the current weekly status (CWS) terms for rural areas fell further to 4.3 per cent in August.
This is the lowest since the start of FY26.
For urban areas, it went down to 6.7 per cent during the month from 7.2 per cent in July, according to the monthly periodic labour force survey (PLFS) data released by the National Statistics Office (NSO) on Monday.
Data further showed that while the unemployment rate among men declined to 5 per cent during the month, the jobless rate among women rose a tad higher to 5.2 per cent.
In CWS, the activity status is determined on the reference period over the past seven days preceding the survey date.
Under this, a person is considered unemployed in a week if he or she did not work even for one hour on any day during the reference week but sought or were available for work at least for one hour on any day during the reference week.
Meanwhile, the labour force participation rate (LFPR) — which is a measure of the number of people either working or looking for work — rose to 55 per cent in August from 54.9 per cent in July.
In rural areas, the figure rose to 57 per cent, while in urban areas, it stood at 50.9 per cent, up from 56.9 per cent and 50.7 per cent, respectively.
For men, the LFPR stood at 77 per cent and for women, it stood at 33.7 per cent in August. This is down from 77.1 per cent for males and up from 33.3 per cent for females in July respectively.
Among youth (15-29 age group) as well, the jobless rate declined to 14.6 per cent from 14.9 per cent, with females having a higher rate (17.8 per cent) than men (13.5 per cent).
This figure is important because people belonging to this age group are usually first-timers in the labour market and this metric reflects its robustness.
The sampling methodology for PLFS has been revamped by the NSO from January 2025.
This was done in a bid to estimate the key employment and unemployment indicators on a monthly basis for rural and urban areas in the CWS method at the all-India level.
Among a key change in the methodology, a rotational panel sampling design is used.
Here, each selected household is visited four times in four consecutive months with the first visit scheduled in the first month and other three revisits in the following three months for both rural and urban areas.
The present monthly bulletin is the fifth in the series for the month of August 2025.
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