New Delhi: India is still not out of the woods as far as unemployment is concerned after a year when the lockdown was imposed to contain the spread of deadly COVID-19 on March 25 last year as pandemic-induced job loss has not tapered off consistently.
The government had imposed a lockdown to curb the spread of the pandemic but this impacted economic and commercial activities and resulted in job loss and later on the exodus of migrant workers which rocked the entire nation.
According to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) data, the unemployment rate was recorded at 6.9 per cent in February 2021 which is slightly better than 7.8 per cent in the same month last year and 8.8 per cent in March 2020, during which lockdown was imposed.
The data showed that the unemployment rate had peaked to 23.5 per cent in April and remained at 21.7 per cent in May. It started tapering off from June onward when it was recorded at 10.2 per cent in the month and further improved to 7.4 per cent in July.
However, the unemployment rate again rose slightly to 8.3 in August and improved to 6.7 per cent in September last year, as per CMIE data.
In October, unemployment again rose slightly to 7 per cent and then eased to 6.5 per cent in November last year as per the data.
The CMIE data showed that the unemployment rate had risen to 9.1 per cent in December 2020 and improved in January to 6.5 per cent.
Experts said that the CMIE data indicated improvement in the unemployment scenario from July onwards, but there is a need for consistency which would only come after an increase in buoyancy in the manufacturing and services sectors.
They were of the view that the farm sector has done well which engages over 55 per cent of the country's population but there is a need for improvement in hiring in urban and industrial areas.
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They opined that the government has taken many steps to boost fresh hiring in the country but repeated policy interventions and monitoring of existing schemes and initiatives at the ground level are required to achieve consistent improvement in the employment scenario in the country.
According to labour ministry data, around 16.5 lakh people have benefited from the Aatmanirbhar Bharat Rozgar Yojana (ABRY) which was launched in October to encourage hiring in the country amid the COVID-19 pandemic till March 9, 2021.
The scheme was introduced on October 1, 2020, to incentivise the creation of new employment along with social security benefits and restoration of loss of employment during the pandemic.