The Indian economy is likely to post better than anticipated growth in the second quarter (July-September) owing to robust urban consumption and expansion in services, a Business Standard analysis of high-frequency indicators showed. While gross domestic product growth in the September quarter is expected to come below the 7.8 per cent print in the June quarter due to a favourable base fading, analysts say the print will be much closer to 7 per cent than the 6.5 per cent anticipated earlier. While the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had estimated 6.5 per cent growth for July-September, last month Governor Shaktikanta Das said the growth figure would surprise on the upside.

Fresh formal job creation cooled for the second consecutive month to decline to a six-month low in September, signalling a downturn in the labour markets this financial year. The number of new monthly subscribers under the Employees' Provident Fund (EPF) declined by 6.45 per cent to 891,583 in September from 953,092 in August, shows the latest payroll data released by the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO). Besides, the net payroll additions -- calculated by taking into account the number of new subscribers, the number of exits, and the return of old subscribers -- increased by 14.9 per cent to 1.72 million in September from 1.49 million in August.

India's merchandise trade deficit surged to a record $31.5 billion in October as festival demand led to a sharp increase in imports of gold and silver, even as exports registered positive growth, aided by a favourable base. According to data released by the commerce department on Wednesday, merchandise exports grew at the fastest pace (6.2 per cent) in 11 months to $33.6 billion in October. Imports rose at the fastest pace (12.3 per cent) in 13 months to $65.03 billion.

Gig workers in e-commerce firms are yet to find satisfactory channels to voice their concerns as none of the 12 major e-commerce platforms have recognised any collective body of workers, Fairwork India said in its latest report released on Monday. "It is disconcerting that despite the rise in platform worker collectivisation across the country, over the past four years, there was insufficient evidence from any platform that showed a willingness to recognise a collective body of workers," the report notes. The project by Fairwork India, in collaboration with Oxford Internet Institute and WZB Berlin Social Science Centre, surveyed 963 consumers and studied the practices of 12 major e- commerce platforms.

While the country's unemployment rate is falling, the quality of employment seems to have taken a hit. The pace of formalisation slowed in the five months of the current financial year (April-August) with more than half a million fewer formal jobs created in the period compared to the same period last year, according to data from the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO). The payroll data showed that cumulatively 4.92 million new subscribers joined the social security organisation between April-August this year, compared to 5.51 million subscribers in the same period in the previous year, reflecting a 10.7 per cent decline in the number of new payrolls created.

The quality of employment has deteriorated in 12 of the 21 major states and Union Territories, as the proportion of workers in regular or salaried jobs declined between July 2022 and June 2023 compared to the previous year, according to a Business Standard analysis of the latest Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) released by the National Statistical Office. Assam experienced the most significant decline in the share of workers in salaried work, dropping by 8.7 percentage points to 10.8 per cent in the July 2002-June 2023 period from 19.5 per cent in the July 2021-June 2022 period. This was followed by Delhi (6.2 percentage points), Uttarakhand (5.2 percentage points), and Chhattisgarh (1.6 percentage points).

India's unemployment rate fell to a six-year low of 3.2 per cent in the July-June 2022-23 period, down from 4.1 per cent in the same period the previous year, according to the latest annual Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) report. The report, released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) on Monday, showed a decline in unemployment rates in both rural and urban areas during the 2022-23 period to 2.4 per cent and 5.4 per cent, respectively, from 3.2 per cent and 6.3 per cent in the 2021-22 period. The unemployment rate for rural women (1.8 per cent) was lower than that for rural men (2.7 per cent) in 2022-23; in urban areas, the rate was higher for females (7.5 per cent) compared to males (4.7 per cent).

Youth unemployment (ages 15 to 29) is higher than the national average of 12.4 per cent in Telangana (14.2 per cent) and Rajasthan (13 per cent), followed by Chhattisgarh (6.7 per cent) and MP (6 per cent).

'The pace of disbursement and project recommendation picks up as the tenure of the House draws near and usually all amount is released.'

Employment in India saw a V-shaped recovery after being adversely impacted between April and June 2020 during the Covid lockdown and during April-June 2021, when the second wave struck, said Krishnamurthy V Subramanian, former chief economic advisor, in a paper released on Friday. Subramanian is now serving as executive director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). From the official survey data of the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO), the paper titled 'Employment in India: Data Sources, Facts, and Trends' showed that both worker-population ratio (WPR) and labour force participation rate (LFPR) were higher, while the unemployment rate was lower during October-December 2022 when compared to the corresponding quarter in 2019.

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The size of India's middle class will nearly double to 61 per cent of its total population by 2047, from 31 per cent in 2020-21, as continuing political stability and economic reforms with a sustained annual growth rate of between 6 per cent and 7 per cent over the next two and half decades will make the country one of the largest markets in the world. The findings are part of a report released on Wednesday by the People Research on India's Consumer Economy (PRICE) and India's Citizen Environment, a not-for-profit think tank. The report titled, The Rise of India's Middle Class, is based on an analysis of primary data collected by PRICE through its pan-Indian survey.

India, along with Southeast Asian countries such as Indonesia, is expected to sustain growth in the medium-term in Asia region, replacing China as the key growth driver, Morgan Stanley and Nomura said in two separate reports released on Monday. While Morgan Stanley projected a 6.2 per cent gross domestic product (GDP) growth forecast for India in FY24, Nomura estimated the Indian economy to grow at 5.9 per cent in 2023. "Even with a slowing China, we expect GDP growth in Asia to sustainably outperform other emerging markets and the US. India and Southeast Asia are set to be the fastest-growing economies this decade.

India's urban unemployment rate declined in Q4FY23 to 6.8 per cent - the lowest in over four years -- after it stagnated at 7.2 per cent in the previous October-December quarter, reflecting improvement in the labour market, according to the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) on Monday. The unemployment rate in current weekly status (CWS) terms for all ages in the March quarter was the lowest recorded in more than four years, from the time the NSO released India's first quarterly urban jobless rate for the December quarter in 2018. The jobless rate in urban areas had been on a continuous decline since the peak of 20.8 per cent in the April-June quarter of FY21.

The share of women workers in registered factories submitting annual returns - working more than the statutorily-mandated maximum limit of 48 hours in a week - increased to a 11-year high of 33.6 per cent in 2019, shows the latest annual data released by the labour bureau. In comparison, only 27.9 per cent male workers worked more than the statutorily-mandated hours. Earlier in 2008, 39.2 per cent women workers had worked more than the prescribed work time.

The churn in Indian labour markets will be led by technology-driven sectors like artificial intelligence and machine learning (38 per cent), followed by data analysts and scientists (33 per cent) and data entry clerks (32 per cent).

Only one in four workers in Karnataka receive a salary, the lowest among the four industrialised states of India, a Business Standard analysis of the latest annual Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) data shows. While 31.6 per cent workers in Gujarat receive regular wages (or salaries), followed by Tamil Nadu (30.3 per cent) and Maharashtra (29.4 per cent), only 25.7 per cent workers in Karnataka receive the same. The figure stands at 21.5 per cent at the national level, according to the 2021-22 PLFS data.

A decision on the interest rate for close to 60 million active subscribers of the Employee Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) is likely to be taken in the next Central Board of Trustee (CBT) meeting, starting on March 25. A letter from the social security organisation regarding the convening of the 233rd CBT meeting was sent to all the board members last week, soliciting their presence in the meeting. Although the venue and the agenda haven't been drawn out yet, sources familiar with the matter say that the interest rate is unlikely to go below 8 per cent level amid a rising interest rate scenario across the globe.

In the jobs created in 2022, the share of those in the age group 18-25 increased to at least a five-year high of 56 per cent. A Business Standard analysis of the monthly Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) payroll data shows in 2018 the share of youths among the new EPFO subscribers was 50.9 per cent. The National Statistical Office is releasing the monthly EPFO payroll data since April 2018 as part of the government's effort to track formal-sector employment by using payrolls as an instrument.

India is expected to contribute 15 per cent to the global growth in 2023, an International Monetary Fund (IMF) official said on Tuesday. "Both India and China are expected to contribute 50 per cent of the global growth in the upcoming year (2023). "However, the share of India's contribution to global growth is expected to be around 15 per cent," Krishna Srinivasan, director, Asia and Pacific Department (APD) at IMF said at a roundtable with reporters from south Asian countries.