India's unemployment rose to a three-month high in March to 7.8 per cent as the country's labour markets deteriorated, according to data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). Unemployment rate in the country surged in December 2022 to 8.30 per cent but declined in January to 7.14 per cent. It edged up again in February to 7.45 per cent, the CMIE data released on Saturday showed. During March, the unemployment rate in urban areas was at 8.4 per cent while in the rural areas it was at 7.5 per cent.
India's unemployment rate surged to a one-year high of 8.3 per cent in August as employment sequentially fell by 2 million to 394.6 million, according to data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). During July, the unemployment rate was at 6.8 per cent and the employment was 397 million, the CMIE data added. "The urban unemployment rate is usually higher at about 8 per cent than the rural unemployment rate, which is usually around 7 per cent.
The unemployment rate shot up to a record 10.9 per cent in the week that ended on December 18, points out Mahesh Vyas.
Average wages paid by listed companies is more than twice the salaries paid by other enterprises, points out Mahesh Vyas.
India's unemployment rate witnessed a sharp decline to 6.57 per cent in January, the lowest since March 2021, as the country gradually recovers with easing of restrictions following a decline in Omicron cases, according to CMIE. While unemployment in urban India stood at 8.16 per cent in January, in rural areas it was the lowest at 5.84 per cent, as per data by independent think-tank Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). In December, the unemployment rate stood at 7.91 per cent, with urban at 9.30 per cent and rural at 7.28 per cent, it added.
Sebi has restructured its advisory committee on market data that recommends policy measures pertaining to areas like securities market data access and privacy. Rejigging its market data advisory committee, Sebi has said the panel will now have 21 members, as per the latest information with the regulator. Earlier the committee had 20 members. The committee is chaired by M S Sahoo, Professor at National Law University, Delhi and former chairperson, Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI).
The 6.7% growth in Index of Consumer Sentiments in July 2022 is the highest since September 2021, explains Mahesh Vyas.
Agnipath offers jobs to youngsters between 17.5 years and 23 years of age. The unemployment rate in this age group has risen from around 23% in 2017 to over 50% since 2020. Every second person who is looking for employment in this age group is unemployed, explains Mahesh Vyas.
The growth is particularly remarkable because it comes at levels higher than during the pre-Covid times, notes Mahesh Vyas.
What the labour market statistics of March 2022 show is India's biggest sign of economic distress, points out Mahesh Vyas.
The fall in the employment rate translated into a 2.6 million fall in absolute employment between December 2022 and March 2023. Most of this fall was in March 2023.
The country's unemployment rate in July fell to 6.80 per cent, the lowest level in the last six months, amid rising agriculture activities during monsoon, according to Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) data. The unemployment rate dropped to 6.80 per cent in July from 7.80 per cent in June, the CMIE data said. Rural unemployment declined 6.14 per cent to 272.1 million last month from 265.2 million or 8.03 per cent in June, it said.
It would be larger than even in the pandemic year of 2020-2021, notes Mahesh Vyas.
Urban employment rate increased to 34.96 per cent in February. This is the highest employment rate recorded in urban India since September 2020.
This is reflected in an improvement in their sentiments as well, explains Mahesh Vyas.
Households with only one employed person can be considered to be somewhat vulnerable. Their proportion is rising. Also rising is the proportion of highly vulnerable households with no person employed, observes Mahesh Vyas.
'We are today worse off today compared to where we were two years ago by as much as 43 per cent,' notes Mahesh Vyas.
Only West Asia and North Africa have a lower employment rate than India, points out Mahesh Vyas.
The second wave of COVID-19 and the resultant localised lockdowns have impacted over 75 lakh jobs, taking the unemployment rate to a four-month high of 8 per cent, the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) said on Monday. The situation on the employment front is expected to continue to remain challenging going forward as well, CMIE's managing director and chief executive Mahesh Vyas said.
Something seems to be working for Indian consumers. Yet, the Indian consumer expresses some caution this festive season, reveals Mahesh Vyas.
Urban men lost more jobs than women during the second wave of COVID-19, implying a complete loss of livelihood for millions of households, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). The most disproportionate loss of jobs because of the first wave of COVID-19 was among urban women, CMIE's MD and CEO Mahesh Vyas said in his analysis. He said urban women account for about three per cent of total employment, but they accounted for 39 per cent of total job losses in the first wave of the pandemic.
The Economic Survey will remain a documentation of the government's resolve to not recognise the severe stress on the labour markets and on the livelihoods of Indian households arising out of the pandemic and the consequent lockdown, observes Mahesh Vyas.
Labour seems to have found employment as maids, cooks, gardeners, security guards and the like -- a transition that could be described as from farms to the kitchen sink, instead of farms to factories, observes Mahesh Vyas.
The week ended October 17 was remarkable as it saw a fall in the unemployment rate. We have not seen such a level in any monthly estimate of the employment rate since March 2020, Mahesh Vyas points out.
Of these 8.5 million additional people employed in September, 6.5 million were in rural India, reveals Mahesh Vyas.
In the past 12 months, since September 2020, the net cumulative increase in employment has been just 44,483. This is negligible -- just 0.04 million on a base of over 400 million jobs, reveals Mahesh Vyas.
While many of the lost jobs will come back, the current loss is huge and its impact on the households that have suffered because of this cannot be captured in the comfort that jobs will come back eventually, observes Mahesh Vyas.
In the week ended June 6, only 2.3 per cent of the households reported that their incomes were higher than a year ago. This was the lowest-ever proportion of households reporting an increase in income in any week, reveals Mahesh Vyas.
Casual labour, which is the type of employment provided by agriculture, yields much lower wages -- of the order of Rs 291 per day. Labour would not voluntarily shift to this lowest wage-rate sector unless it had no better option, observes Mahesh Vyas.
Employment fell by 2.5 million in February, 0.1 million in March, 7.4 million in April and then by 15.3 million in May, explains Mahesh Vyas.
Over 10 million Indians have lost their jobs because of the second wave of COVID-19, and around 97 per cent of households' incomes have declined since the beginning of the pandemic last year, Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) chief executive Mahesh Vyas said on Monday. The unemployment rate measured by the think-tank is expected to come at 12 per cent at the end of May as against 8 per cent in April, Vyas told PTI, adding this signifies that about 10 million or 1 crore Indians have lost jobs in this period. Stating that the main reason for the job losses is "mainly the second wave" of COVID-19 infections, Vyas said, "As the economy opens up, part of the problem will be solved but not entirely."
Recovery of the Indian economy depends to a great extent on acceleration in the spending of these relatively richer households, explains Mahesh Vyas.
May 2021 will end with double-digit unemployment rate, falling employment rate and substantial loss of employment, points out Mahesh Vyas.
'The pipeline of new industrial projects is the best I've seen in the last 10 years, and it looks solid enough to sustain for at least a few quarters,' points out Naushad Forbes, adding, 'It is only when we get back to the same labour force participation we saw before Covid that the economy will have truly recovered.'
The cumulative loss of salaried jobs since the pandemic is even larger at 12.6 million, reveals Mahesh Vyas.
'Loss of these urban salaried jobs is, therefore, likely to have a particularly debilitating impact on the economy, besides causing immediate hardship to middle-class households,' points out Mahesh Vyas.
While salaried jobs are not lost easily, once lost they are also far more difficult to retrieve. Therefore, their ballooning numbers are a source of worry, notes Mahesh Vyas.
Indian women have education, inspiration and perspiration -- but not enough employment, points out Mahesh Vyas.
The return of the unemployment rate to pre-lockdown times is not worth celebrating because it is more a reflection of a shrinking labour force than a decline in the count of the unemployed, observes Mahesh Vyas.
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