TC Web Desk
The latest monthly time series data of the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) has revealed that the overall unemployment rate in India in March is 7.6 percent, below from February’s 8.1 percent. On April 2, the ratio further declined to 7.5 percent, with urban unemployment rate found to be 8.5 percent and rural at 7.1 percent.
While the decline is an indicator of a recovering economy, experts like Abhirup Sarkar, a retired professor of economics at the Indian Statistical Institute, find the overall unemployment rate to be still high for a “poor” country like India. “The decrease in the ratio shows that the economy is getting back on track after being hit by Covid-19 for two years,” he told a newspaper, adding, “Poor people, particularly in rural areas, cannot afford to remain unemployed, for which they are taking up any job which comes in their way.”
Also Read: Unemployment Led to More Than 3,000 Suicides in 2020: Nityanand Rai
Among the Indian states and union territories, Haryana recorded the highest unemployment rate in March at 26.7 percent, followed by Rajasthan and Jammu & Kashmir at 25 percent each, Bihar at 14.4 percent, Tripura at 14.1 percent and West Bengal at 5.6 percent, says the CMIE data.
Last year, in April, the overall unemployment rate was 7.9 percent, which shot up to 11.8 percent in May.
Karnataka and Gujarat registered the least unemployment rate at 1.8 percent each in March 2022.
