India’s unemployment rate rose to a four-month high of 7.91% in December, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). The third wave of the pandemic could now be worsening the situation a bit.
Even before the third Covid wave, potentially to be dominated by the Omicron variant of the virus, began, the country’s unemployment rate spiked, mirroring the inability of a slowly recovering economy to address the increasing demand for jobs.
India’s unemployment rate rose to a four-month high of 7.91% in December, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). The third wave of the pandemic could now be worsening the situation a bit. Hopefully, since there isn’t any likelihood of the massive lock-down this time around – a somewhat high level of vaccination of the population is seen to reduce the severity of the pandemic – the impending rise in joblessness could be a less sharp.
As per the CMIE data, both urban and rural areas contributed to the spike in the rate of joblessness during December. The all-India unemployment rate was higher in August at 8.32% but the joblessness rate in the following three months was lower – at 6.86% in September, 7.75% in October and 7% in November.
“The economy is unable to generate adequate jobs for those who are seeking it. There was a healthy increase in the labour participation rate in December. The labour force increased by 8.5 million, but employment expanded by less 4 million only. This caused the unemployment rate to go up,” CMIE’s MD & CEO Mahesh Vyas said.
Overall employment had increased by 1.4 million in November to 402.1 million over October. In October, country’s overall employment declined by 5.5 million to 400.8 million over the previous month.
As per CMIE’s latest monthly data, the weakness in urban jobs remained unabated in December as well. The joblessness in urban areas rose in December to a four-month high of 9.3% compared with 8.62% in September, 7.38% in October and 8.21% in November.
Rural joblessness rate, however, was at a two-month high in December at 7.28% compared with 6.44% in November. In August, the rural joblessness rate was 7.64%, it fell to 6.06% in September but rose again to 7.91% in October.
