Good news! Revival in rural jobs push India's employment rate up in July

After witnessing a steep fall in employment rate in June 2022, economic think-tank Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) has estimated that the trend has been reversing in the current month.

In the last three days of the month since July 12, the unemployment rate has been decreasing gradually at 7.29 per cent on July 14, 7.46 per cent on July 13 and 7.33 per cent on July 12.

In June 2022, the all-India unemployment rate was 7.80 per cent, urban at 7.30 per cent and rural at 8.03 per cent.

Reacting to this, economist Abhirup Sarkar said this may be due to seasonal variations or errors in sample collection by the agency.

According to the data, the all-India unemployment rate in June was 7.80 per cent, urban at 7.30 per cent and rural at 8.03 per cent. In the previous month, the all-India unemployment level was 7.12 per cent.

CMIE said India's June 2022 labour statistics had been highly disappointing. Employment fell by 13 million from 404 million in May 2022 to 390 million in June 2022.

The agency said this shows that labour markets had shrunk in June, with three million being added to the labour force. In the last month, the labour force shrunk by 10 million.

CMIE said the mass exit of labour shows that the labour participation rate (LPR) had shrunk to the lowest level at 38.8 per cent, which was 40 per cent in the preceding two months.

According to the agency, the fall in LPR was more pronounced in rural areas. The revival in rural employment is expected to be in the agriculture labourers with monsoon picking up in the coming weeks.

CMIE also pointed out that June 2022 also saw a fall of around 2.5 million jobs among the salaried class. According to the think-tank, the vulnerability of the salaried jobs has been exposed this way. The only saviour is that the economy has to grow at a faster pace to generate employment, it said.

State-wise unemployment data shows in West Bengal was 5.2 per cent, with Haryana at the top at 30.6 per cent.