India’s unemployment rate at a four-month high: CMIE

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• Jan 3, 2022 | moderator

Digital Desk: India’s unemployment rate surged from its previous 7.0% to 7.9% in the month of December. It is the highest recorded rate since 8.3% in the month of August, reported by Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE).

With a sudden surge in Covid cases due to the Omicron variant in the month of December, economic activities, and consumer sentiments have seen a change in the country. New curbs, restrictions have once again been placed in many states, forcing defunct and decreased economic ventures in the South Asian nation.

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Urban employment has seen a sudden rise to 9.3% in December from 8.2% in the previous month. Meanwhile the rural unemployment rate has jumped up to 7.3% from 6.4% as mentioned in the report.

Although there have been rise in self-employment in the last few weeks, with many shifting their strategy towards rural agri-production, yet unemployment has been hit hard since last month.

A worrisome trend is cited by economists and policymakers who fear the surge in Omicron cases can reverse the economic recovery seen in the previous quarter.

India’s unemployment rate saw a marginal drop in the month of September to 6.86% as against 8.32% in August. Economists were hopeful of a positive rise in the graph as covid cases saw a drop in the last quarter.

Additional jobs were created in rural sector as many urban workers shifted their base to their villages as was evident in the first Covid wave, when large number of labourers and workers marched towards their home town after losing jobs.

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As per the CMIE, India’s employment rate saw a push to 37.87% in September as compared to 37.15% in August after additional jobs were created by the government.

The slump in unemployment rate even after a GDP growth speaks a worrisome trend for the country’s overall economic growth.