Similarly, India’s employment rate, which fell by a massive 10 percentage points to 29.9% immediately after the lockdown imposition and declined further to 26.1% in the week ended April 19, started rising since early May.

After a sharp increase to 23.5% in April-May due to the lockdown, unemployment rate in the country dropped almost equally steeply in the first two weeks of June, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy. The rate first dropped to 17.5% in the first week of June and then it fell further to 11.6% in the second week of the month.

This signals a rather smart revival of the economic activities, corroborated by certain other data points including exports, which touched $4.94 billion in the first week of June, against $5.03 billion a year before, industrial power consumption and highway toll collections.

The CMIE also highlighted that the fall in the unemployment rate came with an increase in the labour participation rate (LPR), which was recorded at 40.4% in the week ended June 14. In the week ended March 22 (just before the imposition of the national lockdown), the LPR stood at 42.6% but fell to 39.2% in the first week of the lockdown and again to 36.1% in the first week of April and to the trough of 35.4% in the week ended April 26. Since then, the LPR has been on recovery path.

Similarly, India’s employment rate, which fell by a massive 10 percentage points to 29.9% immediately after the lockdown imposition and declined further to 26.1% in the week ended April 19, started rising since early May. The employment rate increased 3.3 percentage points from 32.4% in the week ended June 7 to 35.7% in the week ended June 14.