A tale of growing unemployment of India

The employment rate in India declined to 37.7% in February 2021 as compared to 39.4% in 2019-20. The analysis said that the employment rate has continued to decline for the last three years.

Ground Report | New Delhi: India's unemployment rate has come down again to the level before covid. The unemployment rate in the country in February 2021 stood at 6.9%, while it was 7.8% in February 2020. The information has come out from the weekly analysis of the Center for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE).

Unemployment is elaborated as a condition in which a skilled and capable talented person who wants a job nonetheless cannot get a proper job on account of many grounds. There are numerous grounds of unemployment, it not only means that a person doesn’t have a job it also results in not working in their expertise field. There are different types of unemployment i.e disguised unemployment, seasonal unemployment, and open unemployment.

According to CMIE, the return of the unemployment rate to pre-lockdown levels is not something to celebrate as it shows more of a declining labour force than a decline in the unemployed count. CMIE says that the labour force participation rate and employment rate have remained significantly lower than the pre-lockdown levels, indicating that there is a shortage of jobs in the labour market and labour has moved away from it. CMIE data shows that the labour participation rate was 40.5% in February 2021. It was 40.6% in January 2021 and 42.6% in February 2020.

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Grounds of unemployment

In a country like India, there is much reason for a large section of the population for being unemployed. There are numerous elements of this situation such as population growth, slow economic growth, seasonal occupation, slow growth of the economic sector, and fall in the cottage industry. A large part of the Indian population is and the sector only provides employment in harvest or plantation time.

In the last 5 years, the youth could get employment, so the Modi government also brought many schemes. In the PM Rozgar Yojana, 21 lakh 71 thousand 48 people have got employment from 2016-17 to 2020-21. Through the Pandit Deendayal Grameen Kaushal Yojana, five lakh 49 thousand 50 people got employment in the last 5 years. Under Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana, 5 lakh 14 thousand 998 people were given work in 5 years.

The government has taken the problem very seriously and has taken measures to slowly reduce unemployment. Some of these schemes include IRDP (Integrated Rural Development Programme), DPAP (Drought Prone Area Programme), Jawahar Rozgar Yojana, Employment Assurance Scheme, NRY (Nehru Rozgar Yojana), India’s unemployment rate rose sharply to 9.1 percent in December 2020 even as economic activity continues to increase. Coronavirus has become the most important factor which has hit unemployment even more. Besides, these schemes the government also makes some rules flexible, so that employment can be created in the private sector also.

In India, the unemployment rate is estimated by directly interviewing a large sample of randomly selected households. Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy Consumer Pyramids panel of households includes over 174,405 households including over 522,000 members who are over 15 years old.

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Employment rate declined to 37.7%

The employment rate in India declined to 37.7% in February 2021 as compared to 39.4% in 2019-20. The analysis said that the employment rate has continued to decline for the last three years.

CMIE further said that the number of jobseekers declined sharply during this period is. During the July-February period of the last financial year, an average of 40.53 crore people were in employment.

During the corresponding period of the current financial year, only 39.52 crore people were in employment. There are estimated to be 1 crore fewer jobs this year as compared to last year. In such a situation, the post-lockdown period shows a 2.5% decline in employment and a 6.2% decline in the count of unemployed.

India’s unemployment rate stood at 7.8%

India’s unemployment rate stood at 7.8% for the week ended November 22 and the labour participation rate at 39.3% resulting in a sharp fall in employment rate at 36.24%. While this is a sign of weakening labour markets over the last four week, it also reflects the inability of the labour markets to absorb adequate proportions of the working age population during the festive season of 2020, the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy said.

By giving a conclusion, we could clarify that India has reached a critical stage. But, now the government and local authorities have taken the problem seriously and are working on it to reduce unemployment. Also, to completely solve the issue of unemployment we have to tackle the main issue of unemployment that is the vast population of India.

Unemployment rate higher than neighbouring countries in last decade

Its figures also show that the unemployment rate in India has been higher than the neighbouring countries in the last decade. However, Sri Lanka's position in terms of employment was worse in 2009 than a decade ago. If we talk about the data of the Center for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), then according to it, the second wave of covid has increased the unemployment rate in India significantly on an annual basis.

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