Unemployment rate declines to 6.6% in September quarter: survey
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New Delhi: The National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) reported a decrease in the unemployment rate for individuals aged 15 and above in urban areas to 6.6% during the September quarter compared to 7.2% a year ago.
The unemployment rate signifies the percentage of jobless individuals in the labor force, revealing a reduction in urban joblessness from the previous year. The period from July to September 2022 exhibited higher joblessness due to the profound impact of COVID-19 restrictions.
Previously, in the March quarter of the last fiscal year, the unemployment rate was recorded at 6.8%. Subsequently, in April-June, it stood at 6.6%, while in the third quarter of the preceding fiscal, it was 7.2%.
The NSSO's 20th Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) highlighted that the urban unemployment rate among females aged 15 and above fell to 8.6% in July-September from 9.4% in the corresponding quarter a year earlier. Among males in the same demographic, the unemployment rate decreased to 6% compared to 6.6% a year ago.
Additionally, the labor force participation rate (LFPR) in the Current Weekly Status (CWS) for individuals aged 15 and above in urban areas rose to 49.3% during the July-September quarter of 2023, marking an increase from 47.9% in the same period in the previous year.
The PLFS, launched in April 2017 by the NSSO, regularly publishes a quarterly bulletin that provides estimates of key labor force indicators, including the unemployment rate, Worker Population Ratio (WPR), and Labor Force Participation Rate (LFPR) based on the Current Weekly Status approach.
The bulletin offers insights into unemployed individuals in the CWS approach, considering a person as unemployed if they did not work for even an hour during a week but were available or sought work for at least an hour during that period.
The LFPR represents the percentage of the population in the labor force, while the WPR indicates the percentage of people working or willing to work within a week. The latest Quarterly Bulletin released by the NSSO for the September quarter is the 20th in its series.