According to the Indian Economy Monitoring Center, the number of employees increased from $ 399.38 million to $ 397.78 million in August, with nearly 1.3 million job losses in rural India alone.
More than 1.5 million people from the formal and informal sectors lost their jobs in August, inverting some of the July earnings, the unemployment rate being reached in rural and urban India.
According to the Indian Economy Monitoring Center (CME), the number of employees increased from $ 399.38 million to $ 397.78 million in August, with nearly 1.3 million job losses in India rural alone.
According to the CME, the national unemployment rate increased from 6.95% in July to 8.32% last month.
Urban unemployment increased by 1.5 percentage point to 9.78% in August. It was 8.3% in July 10.07% in June 14.73% in May and 9.78% in April. In March, just before the second wave of COVID infections, the urban unemployment rate was 7.27%.
Rural unemployment increased by 1.3 percentage points to 7.64% in August against 6.34% in July, mainly motivated by low seedlings during the Kharif season. Although the employment rate has decreased, the participation rate of the labor force has marginally increased in August, indicating that a larger group of people was willing to enter the labor market. The monthly data of the CME showed 36 million people were actively investigated for approximately 30 million in July.
The total size of the labor force has also reached 433.86 million – nearly four million more than July – reflecting a tendency to deterioration. In fact, the size of the labor force in August was almost the same as in March 2020, just before the Pandemic Lock-to-Plan, which led to a muted economic activity, at the closure of companies and a marketing market shrinking in April.
India has attended a difficult environment in recent years. Although economic activity is gradually returning to normal, the labor market is in difficulty. In India, at least eight states still report two-digit unemployment rates.
The rise in unemployment in August comes after July, nearly 15 million people mainly join the labor force in a low-productivity work of agriculture when the monsoon seed season was at its peak. Employment additions in July mainly included informal poor jobs and, unless the economy recovers only these people absorbed in agriculture, the work of agriculture will have difficulty finding alternatives, said CME last month.
“The labor market struggle will continue at least a few more months. Unless the formal sectors show a great promise, the recovery of good quality jobs will take time. The economy is slowly covered, at least the first quarter GDP data for the 20021, but it is a low base. With the holiday season, you will get up in the coming months, but a resumption of decent jobs will depend on the economy, market demand and if we can handle to stop the third wave of the pandemic, “KR Shyam Sundar, a labor economist, said.