Unemploymentratefalls as Covid-19 curbs ease

NEW DELHI: India’s unemployment rate improved to a sixweek low of 8.7% as falling coronavirus infections lead states to relax lockdown curbs and monsoon rains cover some parts of the country. Economists, however, said the recovery is mainly due to easing of restrictions on operations in the informal sector as well as withdrawal of people from the workforce in the absence of decent jobs.

The urban unemployment dropped to 9.7% in the week ended June 13 against a monthly unemployment rate of 14.7% in May, according to data available with the CMIE.

The drop is more prominent if the fresh weekly numbers are compared with previous weeks. The urban unemployment rate in the just-ended week is 8.18 percentage points less than the 17.88% rate in the week ended May 30, and 3.6 percentage points less than the week ended June 6. Similarly, in rural India, the job loss rate improved 2.4 percentage points in the week ended June 13 to 8.23%, compared with the monthly figures of May of 10.63%. India had a national unemployment rate of 12% in May, according to CMIE.

The fresh joblessness is still higher than any of the monthly unemployment rates recorded between January and April when the rate hovered between 6.52% and 7.97%. To put things in perspective, a 7.97% unemployment rate in April erased some 7.35 million jobs, including 3.4 million salaried jobs.

The national unemployment rate had reached a record high of 23.52% in April 2020 during the national lockdown. It improved to 6.52% in January 2021, in line with an economic recovery. But the second wave delivered another hit to the jobs market in April and May. The two months, which were the biggest witness to the ferocity of the second wave of the pandemic, saw about 23 million job losses—both salaried and non-salaried.