Urban unemployment eased to 7.9% in October-December 2019: Govt

NEW DELHI: Unemployment in urban areas eased to 7.9% in October-December 2019 from 8.4% in the previous quarter, data released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation in the quarterly bulletin of the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) showed on Thursday.

Urban unemployment was 9.9% in the December quarter of 2018.

The PLFS is based on the current weekly status (CWS) approach in which a person is considered unemployed in a week if he/she did not work even for one hour but sought or was available for work at least for one hour during the week.

Unemployment rate in urban males including transgenders was 7.3% while that in females was 9.8%.

As per the report, urban joblessness in the age group 15-29 years was 19.2%. Among states, urban unemployment was higher than the national average in Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Telangana, among others. The average unemployment in the category was lower in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Karnataka.

While the sample size was smaller in the previous survey, in the October-December 2019 PLFS report, it was comparable to the earlier surveys and comprised 1.79 lakh people and 45,555 households.

The labour force participation rate rose to 37.2% from 36.8% in the trailing quarter while the worker population ratio increased to 34.2% from 33.7% in the September quarter.

Labour-force according to CWS is the number of persons either employed or unemployed on an average in a week of seven days preceding the date of the survey. Worker population ratio is defined as the percentage of workers in the population. The estimate of workforce in the CWS provides the number of persons worked for at least one hour on any day during the seven days preceding the date of the survey.

Based on the broad status in employment in urban areas, the highest were regular wage/salaried employees at 50% and their share rose marginally from the last quarter among those aged 15 years and above. Self-employed and own account workers were the next two big categories in the urban employment categories. The share of both declined from the September quarter.