Unemployment in urban areas rose to 20.9% in the April-June 2020: Labour Ministry

The urban unemployment rate more than doubled in the first three months of the lockdown from the corresponding quarter a year ago, data released by the government showed, providing the first official estimate of loss of jobs due to the pandemic and the strict measures implemented to control it.

Unemployment in urban areas rose to 20.9% in the April-June period from 9.1% in January-March 2020, and 8.9% in April-June quarter of 2019, showed the quarterly Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) released recently.

Key Highlights

• Unemployment rate in urban males including transgenders was 20.8% while that in females was 21.2%, showed the data released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation in the Young workers were hit the hardest – urban unemployment in the age group 15-29 years was 34.7%.

• The labour force participation rate fell to 35.9% in the quarter from at least a five-quarter high of 37.5% in the previous quarter while the worker population ratio was 28.4%, lower than 34.1% in the March quarter.

• India had imposed what is now regarded as the possibly the most severe lockdown anywhere in the world beginning March 25, which took a heavy toll on the economy. It was eased in phases beginning June 1, 2020.

• The PLFS is based on the current weekly status (CWS) approach in which a person is considered unemployed in a week if he/she did not work even for one hour but sought or was available for work at least for one hour during the week.

• Labour-force according to CWS is the number of persons either employed or unemployed on an average in a week of seven days preceding the date of the survey. Worker population ratio is defined as the percentage of workers in the population.

• The estimate of workforce in the CWS provides the number of persons worked for at least one hour on any day during the seven days preceding the date of the survey.

SOURCE: Economic Times

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