New Delhi: India's unemployment rate is at a continuous hike due to the coronavirus pandemic. As per a report by Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) the week ended May 24 recorded an unemployment rate of 24.3 per cent.
This is a shade higher than the 24.0 per cent unemployment rate recorded in the preceding week. It is also a tad higher than the average unemployment rate of 24.2 per cent seen in the past 8 weeks - the weeks of the lockdown.
The unemployment rate therefore continues to remain very high at over 24 per cent during the lockdown.
The labour participation rate was 38.7 per cent in the week ended May 24. This was lower than the 38.8 per cent recorded in the preceding week. This fall in the labour participation rate comes after three weeks of continuous increases.
While the unemployment rate has been reasonably stable around 24 per cent during the lockdown, the labour participation rate trend seems to tell a story of some interesting changes in the labour markets.
The unemployment rate has risen from 8.8 per cent in March to 23.5 per cent in April and seems to have remained stable at the elevated rate of around 24 per cent in May.
Read more:India's GDP growth seen at 1.2% for Q4 FY20: SBI report
The labour participation rate, on the other hand, which had dropped 6.3 percentage points - from 41.9 per cent in March to 35.6 per cent in April, seems to be regaining a substantial part of the lost ground in May.
The LPR has been rising almost consistently week-after-week in the month. It reached 38.8 per cent as of the week ended May 17 indicating a recovery of nearly half the lost ground of April. The small fall in the latest week does not take away this evidently rising trend.
So, it seems that a fairly large chunk of labour that had technically left the labour markets in April is returning back.
As per CMIE’s Consumer Pyramids Household Survey in April, the labour force had shrunk by 68 million - from 437 million in 2019-20 to 369 million in April. These 68 million had stopped actively looking for jobs. Interestingly, they had not stopped being interested in jobs. This is evident from the fact that the greater labour force increased by 9 million from 449 million in 2019-20 to 458 million in April.
1 in 10 Indian jobseeker lost job, most think layoff imminent: Naukri.com
At least 1 in 10 Indian jobseeker has confirmed he or she has been laid off and nearly three in 10 jobsekkers fear a layoff is imminent, a new survey by naukri.com revealed on Wednesday.
Out of the 10 per cent of jobseekers who have already been laid off, 15 per cent were from the airlines and e-commerce industry each and around 14 per cent were from the hospitality industry.
Around 13 per cent of the laid-off employees were senior professionals with over 11 years of work experience and were working in either sales (12 per cent), HR and admin (12 per cent), marketing (11 per cent) or operations/supply chain (11 per cent) roles.
While 70 per cent of jobseekers are scouting new jobs for better career opportunities, followed by 16 per cent due to salary cuts and 14 per cent due to the fear of being laid off, said the survey involving 50,000 active jobseekers.
Jobseekers from the IT, pharma, medical/healthcare and BFSI industries were less impacted by layoffs and salary cuts as compared to their counterparts from other industries.
While 10 per cent jobseekers confirmed that they have been laid-off as per the survey, almost 34 per cent fear that a layoff is imminent," said Pawan Goyal, Chief Business Officer, Naukri.com.
"On the positive side it is heartening to see that more than 50 per cent of jobseekers are focusing on upskilling for better career opportunities and that is a sure shot way of long term career growth," Goyal added.
(With IANS Inputs)
