‘Urban unemployment at 8.8% in Dec quarter’

NEW DELHI: India’s urban unemployment rate fell for the second consecutive quarter in the threemonth period ending December 2021. However, the unemployment situation continues to be worse than the pre-pandemic period, even though GDP levels have surpassed their pre-pandemic values. There are also indications that India’s labour markets continue to see a worsening of gender balance and quality of jobs. These conclusions can be drawn on the basis of the quarterly report of the PLFS for the period October 2021 to December 2021, which was released by the NSO on May 6. Because the quarterly PLFS rounds do not cover rural areas, they only convey a partial picture of overall economy.

The urban unemployment rate in India stood at 8.8% in the quarter ending December 2021. While this marks a sequential improvement over the numbers in the June and September quarters, it is still marginally higher than the pre-pandemic value for quarter ending December 2019. When compared with absolute GDP levels, the PLFS numbers show that post-pandemic employment recovery has lagged income recovery. GDP levels were higher than pre-pandemic levels in all quarters after June and September 2020 except in the June quarter of 2021.

Another alarming trend in the PLFS is that the gender balance in labour markets continues to worsen. While the LFPR it measures the share of working age population which is either working or looking for work – has increased for men compared to pre-pandemic levels, it was marginally lower for women in both the September and December 2021 quarters.