80 Lakh Indians Got Employment In Last 30 Days; 38.3 Crore Indians Now Have A Job (Govt Reveals Job Data)

In June, over 8 million people re-joined work as provincial lockdowns eased and economic activities picked up across India. 

The positive vibe comes after almost 23 million jobs were lost in April and May.

More People  Rejoining Jobs

As per the fresh data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), the number of people employed in salaried and non-salaried jobs in India went up to 383.28 million by the end of June, up from 375.48 million recorded in May.

Even after the second wave of the pandemic, there are several inherent pain points in the labour market. 

To our relief, the national unemployment rate fell to 9.17% by the end of June from 11.9% in May, and urban joblessness dropped to 10.07%, down by 4.66 percentage points compared with May.

Although, the national unemployment rate and urban unemployment rate in June this year is still the highest since June 2020 with the exception of only May 2021.

Lack Of Descent Jobs

According to the experts and economists, the job market is still stretched and the recovery in June is because of the reopening of informal businesses in urban India and picking up of activities in mining, real estate, and segments of the manufacturing sector.

Moreover, the pain in the job market seems to have lasted long with both the size of the labour market and the labour force participation rate (LFPR) remaining much lower than pre-covid-19 levels.

Here LFPR is a key indicator of the labour market’s health.

Apart from LFPR, the employment rate (ER) is still low. 

Basically, the low LFPR or LPR (labour participation rate) and ER indicates that the system weakness in the market and the lack of decent jobs are keeping people away from the labour market.

Impact Of Second Wave 

The information on CMIE website said, “the average LPR in 2019-20 was 42.7%. It fell to 35.6% in April 2020 and recovered to touch 41% in August 2020. However, it never crossed 41% after the first covid-19 wave. So, the LPR has lost and never recovered about 1.7 percentage points from its pre-covid 19 levels. In April-May 2021 it averaged at 40%… with this India has not recovered its pre-covid LPR levels,”.

In June LPR was 39.57%, the lowest in 13 months, as per the fresh data. 

Before this, the labour participation rate was lower than this was in May 2020 when it had dropped to 38.57% amid a national lockdown imposed to contain the spread of coronavirus.

CMIE said, “the impact on the employment rate (ER) follows…The ER continues to remain lower than in pre-covid times. In 2019-20, ER was 39.5%. This fell to 27% in April 2020 and was at 30% in May 2020. The recovery helped it touch 38% in September 2020. However, the gap with pre-covid levels remained in excess of 1.5 percentage points,”. 

It seems that the second wave has widened this gap substantially.

A professor of economics at Institute of Economic Growth in New Delhi,  Arup Mitra said,“low LFPR and relatively low ER are not good indications and shows that people are staying away from work even when the situation has improved somewhat on the coronavirus front because of lack of decent opportunities,”.