Unemployment rate falls to 9.17% in June

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The unemployment rate fell to 9.17% in June, a development which is seen as a sign of people getting back to work as lockdown restrictions are being eased.

 The unemployment rate in the previous month of May stood at 11.9%, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE).

The urban unemployment rate also fell in June but it is still in double digits at 10.07%. The same was 14.73% in May.

 The rural unemployment rate was 8.75%, sharply lower than 10.63% in May.

Going by the CMIE data, in April 2020, the unemployment rate was at a peak at 23.52%. It started falling and went down at 21.73% in May 2020 and declined to 10.18% in June 2020. Experts said the steep rise in unemployment rate in April last year was due to lockdown.

 With governments gradually lifting lockdown rules, people are getting back to work which is resulting in the decline in the rate of unemployment, experts opined.

The labour participation rate and the employment rate are, however, still very low compared to pre-Covid times.

“The employment rate (ER) , which is the best summary indicator of the labour markets in India, demonstrates weakness in the labour market very well. The employment rate was mostly over 37% between July 2020 and March 2021, with an average that was close to 38 %. It fell to 36.8% in April and then sharply to 35.3 % in May 2021. The first four weeks of June 2021 indicate a recovery that is still just short of 36 per cent. This is a worryingly low employment rate,” CMIE had said recently.