The unemployment rate in urban India was 12.4% in the first quarter of FY22, as against 9.4% recorded in the previous quarter, but far lower than 20.9% prevailing in the year-ago quarter when the first Covid wave hit the country. The latest available results of the quarterly Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), conducted by the ministry of statistics & programme implementation (MoSPI), also showed that 25.5% of urban youth in the 15-29 years age group remained unemployed in the January-March period of the current year, as against 34.7% in the year-ago quarter.
As per PLFS norms, the activity status of a person is determined on the basis of reference period of last seven days preceding the date of survey, as her current weekly status (CWS). Unemployment rate is defined as the percentage of unemployed persons in the labour force.
However, since April-June 2021, the job scenario must have improved a bit. While the results of quarterly PLFS come with a lag, according to Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), which provides more frequent insights into the employment-unemployment scenario, urban joblessness rate was 8.32% in July 2021, 9.78% in August and 8.64% in September compared with 9.78% in April, 14.72% in May and 10.08% in June of last year. The urban unemployment rate, according to CMIE, has been in excess of 7.37% for the five months ending February this year. Labour force participation rate, which is defined as the percentage of population in the labour force for all age groups, grew during the April-June 2021 period to 37.1%, compared with 35.9% in the corresponding period last year.
As per the latest quarterly PLFS report, urban females in the 15-29 age group are worse sufferers than their male counterparts.
If nearly one in four of urban males of the above age group in the labour force remained unemployed in the April-June period of 2021, nearly 31% females were jobless during the same period.
The quarterly PLFS, which is now limited to urban areas, is different from annual PLFS report. Annual PLFS covers both urban and rural areas and gives estimates of labour force indicators both in CWS and usual status (US) method. The US method records only those persons as unemployed who had no gainful work for a major time during 365 days preceding the date of survey and were seeking or available for work.
Former JNU professor Santosh Mehrotra said, “Those with fresh secondary/higher secondary education or graduates always find it difficult to get jobs because of inadequate or no experience. Youth unemployment had tripled between 2012 and 2019. Unless these people are imparted with proper training right from the school level, India will not realise its demographic dividend. In addition, non-farm jobs must grow faster than they have between in the decade to 2022.” Unemployment rate among the urban youth of the 15-29 years age group was at 24.9% and 22.9% respectively in the October-December 2020 and January-March 2021 period respectively.
