New Delhi: India’s unemployment rate rose to a two-year high of 10.09% in October, Bloomberg reported citing data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE).
That figure represents a near-three percentage point increase from September, when it was 7.09%.
Bloomberg added that rural unemployment jumped from 6.2% to 10.82% and that the urban employment rate “eased slightly” to 8.44%.
According to government figures, the unemployment rate for 2022-2023 stood at 3.2%.
But economists have come to rely on CMIE data for a better assessment of the labour market as its figures are based on monthly surveys as opposed to government data, which releases country-wide data less frequently, Bloomberg‘s report said.
India’s economy was projected to rise by an impressive 6% to 6.5% this year.
The population is also growing and India overtook China as the world’s most populous country in April.
But despite this growth, India’s workforce has remained stagnant for the last five years, CMIE chief executive Mahesh Vyas told The Wire.
Close to 10 million Indians entered the job market in October hoping to find work, Bloomberg cited CMIE data as saying.
A survey by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies found earlier this year that 36% of Indians aged 15 to 34 thought that unemployment was the biggest problem facing the country.
When compared to a similar survey conducted in 2016, the proportion of Indians who identified unemployment as the biggest problem increased by 18 percentage points, the Indian Express reported the survey as saying.
As many as 40% of educated respondents (graduate and above) identified unemployment as the biggest challenge, as opposed to only 27% of non-literate individuals doing so.