Companies' rent and lease expenses have seen a significant decline relative to the money they make since the pandemic.
Companies are squeezing more profits from their operations relative to the capital they put to work, the highest now since 2011. Profit after tax relative to capital employed came in at 10.47 per cent in September, shows data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), higher than the 8.41 per cent seen in September last year. This is the highest since March 2010.
High energy costs, long a drag on India's manufacturing competitiveness, are finally easing. Power and fuel expenses accounted for 1.98 per cent of net sales in 2024-25, the lowest level in data compiled by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) over the past two decades.
More than half of all new project announcements in the June 2025 quarter came from the manufacturing sector. Manufacturing projects worth around Rs 2.3 trillion were announced in the three-month period, accounting for 54 per cent of total new projects, according to data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE).
Generative AI is transforming workplaces but at a cost -- there are fewer jobs for young workers just entering the workforce, reveals a Goldman Sachs report.
Economists on Tuesday are not convinced about the latest monthly unemployment data released by the Centre for Monitoring India Economy (CMIE), particularly about the statistics of the rural areas. They asserted that it is difficult to get the real picture of unemployment from the methodology used by the CMIE to get the data. The overall unemployment rate in India has increased to 7.83 per cent in April 2022 as compared to 7.60 per cent in the previous month, CMIE said in its report.
Foreign companies now pay less tax relative to their earnings than at any time in more than three decades. Foreign private companies paid 24.36 per cent of their pre-tax profit as tax in 2023-24, show numbers from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE).
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.
Excess earnings of unlisted companies over and above their interest costs are at a record level. The interest-coverage ratio of 2.94 is the highest going back to 1990-91, according to numbers from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). The ratio measures earnings relative to every rupee to be paid as interest on outstanding debt.
New investment projects announced in the manufacturing sector declined in the three months ended June 2023. The value of new projects was lower than in the March quarter, as well as the year-ago period, shows data from project tracker the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). The new project announcements worth around Rs 85,000 crore in the manufacturing segment in June were a 48 per cent decline from the Rs 1.6 trillion in March and a 66 per cent decline from the Rs 2.5 trillion seen in June 2022.
Both new and completed project values as of December 2024 remain below pre-pandemic levels seen in 2019.
Unemployment rate in the country has zoomed to a high of 8.3 per cent in December, the highest in 2022, according to data from Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). The unemployment rate during November was at 8 per cent, while in September it was the lowest at 6.43 per cent and was at the second highest level during the year at 8.28 per cent in August, the CMIE data stated. While the urban unemployment rate was at 10 per cent during the last month of 2022, rural joblessness stood at 7.5 per cent during December.
'The government should come back as a job creator as it did in the 1960s and the 1970s.'
Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy says industrial sector in India is liket to see expansion at 10.4 per cent for fiscal 2009. The reason for the current slowdown in industrial production was the supply problem faced by sectors like cement, aluminium, electricity and steel, it said. India's industrial growth slipped to 5.3% in January as compared to 11.6% in the same month last year as growth in all major sectors comprising manufacturing, electricity and mining declined.
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 number of fresh formal jobs generated in a month increased to a seven-month high in April, signalling a recovery in the formal labour market in the country, according to the latest monthly payroll data released by the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) on Thursday. In April, the number of new monthly subscribers under the Employees' Provident Fund (EPF) sequentially increased by 18.77 per cent to 887,438 from 747,146 in March.
A key indicator of corporate efficiency may now be better than at any time since the turn of the millennium. The net working capital cycle - a crucial measure that tracks the time a company takes to convert current assets like inventory into sales and then collect the money from customers - has seen remarkable improvement. According to data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), the average company needed nearly 90 days to complete this cycle in 1999-2000.
The unemployment rate for women was last this low around Diwali in 2022. The unemployment rate has dropped for women from 14.9 per cent in December 2023 to 11 per cent in January 2024, according to data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). It was higher in January 2023 at 13.5 per cent.
Indian companies are generating more cash than ever. The net cash flow from listed firms' operations hit a new high of Rs 11.1 trillion in financial year 2023-24 (FY24), crossing the Rs 10-trillion mark for the first time, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) data going back to 1990-91. The FY24 figure represents a 19.3 per cent jump over the previous year, even as quite a few companies are yet to release their numbers.
The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) has lowered its growth forecast to 6 per cent, from 6.2 per cent projected earlier, for this fiscal, owing to the delay in recovery in industrial sector and the fall in mining, manufacturing and construction segments.
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.
Trends in the global energy markets are crucial if India's growth outlook is to remain healthy. Prices for the Indian crude basket were averaging around $86.2 per barrel through Q1FY25 and then moderated to $84 in July and to $78-79 in August (so far). But global crude supply may outpace weak global demand in the short term.
Driven by an estimated 8.4 per cent growth in the fourth quarter, the economy is expected to grow by 7.1 per cent in the just-concluded fiscal and by a robust 9.2 per cent in the current financial year, the leading economic think-tank CMIE has said.
The government has authorised economic think-tank Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) to collect data to be used for compilation of the new series of Index of Industrial Production (IIP).
The Indian economy is likely to grow at 6.6 per cent in the current fiscal on the back of new investment proposals and additional capacity building by companies, economic think-tank CMIE said in a report.
Customers will not gain as much as it appears to be from reduction in excise duty on small cars as announced in the budget for 2006-07 as manufacturers had already raised the prices ahead of the Budget.
The Indian Railways carried more goods in December 2023 than the same time last year, making more money than any month bar one since the pandemic. The railways made Rs 15,098 crore by carrying freight in December 2023. The number was higher only in March 2023 when it earned Rs 15,769 crore, according to data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE).
'The noise that we are hearing is because the five big IT players are not hiring significantly.'
The average inflation in the current fiscal is likely to be around 9.6 per cent as against 4.7 per cent in the last financial year, a leading economic think-tank has said.
Driven by a surge in manufacturing sector, the Index of Industrial Production is estimated to grow at 7.5 per cent in the current fiscal, according to Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy.
With improved prospects for the farm sector, Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy on Friday raised the economic growth forecast for 2005-06 to 6.8 per cent from the earlier six per cent.
With prices of fuel, sugar and metal products likely to remain high, the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy on Tuesday raised the inflation forecast for 2004-05 to 6.5 per cent from the earlier estimate of five per cent.
The south-west monsoon arrived over Kerala after a delay of four days and its progress since then has been unsatisfactory. Forecasts of rainfall for June and July are not good, CMIE said.
Lower income groups earning less than Rs 100,000 a year are yet to recover as are those earning between Rs 100,000 and Rs 200,000.
Economic think-tank Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy has revised its forecast for industrial production growth in 2008-09 to 4.5 per cent from 6.3 per cent as the global economic crisis has cast shadow on its projection.
CMIE expects the growth rate to climb slowly from around 6 per cent in the first-half to about 8 per cent in the second-half of FY 10.
The Indian economy is likely to record a 7.4 per cent growth rate in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2009 as well as in the entire fiscal, a report by an economic think-tank on the economy, said.
"This has been powered by a rebound in the agricultural sector following the drought in 2009-10, and a sharp pick-up in private consumption and gross fixed capital formation," CMIE said.
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