2 Job market is still bad

Employment numbers from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) suggest that the employment scenario continues to be worrisome. The unemployment rate has been in double digits in the last four weeks. It actually increased from 12.15% to 13.62% between the week ending May 30 and June 6, even though NIBRI – which is supposed to be a proxy for economic activity – went up. “The Indian labour market is in its worst condition since the nation-wide lockdown months of April and May 2020”, Mahesh Vyas, the Managing Director of CMIE wrote in an article published on the CMIE website. “Employment has been falling since January 2021 when it touched a recent peak of 400.7 million. It has fallen in each of the four months since then. It 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. The cumulative loss since January therefore is a substantial 25.3 million. This is a significant 6.3% fall in the employed workforce over a four-month period”, he added. CMIE is the only high-frequency source of employment indicators in India. The CMIE numbers are in keeping with a fall in perception on employment in the latest round (May 2021)of RBI’s Consumer Confidence Survey.