Unemployment in India is on the rise again and this time it's worse, shows November data

India's employment scenario, which witnessed a revival in the past few month post a lockdown-induced setback, has again witnessed a dip in November.

Data by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) showed that November was the second consecutive month of contraction in the number of people employed.

"In October, the count of the employed had fallen by 0.1 per cent. In November, the fall was larger at 0.9 per cent," CMIE said.

The decline in October was of 0.6 million. In November, this was much larger at 3.5 million.

The data noted that the recovery in employment, from the steep fall during the April lockdown was smart initially but it slowed down well before the recovery was completed.

In fact, the recovery quickly and progressively slowed down in July, August and September. Then, it reversed in October and November.

"It appears that the recovery phase is over and a decline is setting in again. We see this in the employment data and this could be a reflection of the economy as a whole," CMIE said.

The contraction can be witnessed because unlike much of the official data that is available so far which is almost entirely based on the organised sector, the employment data collected by CMIE's Consumer Pyramids Household Survey covers the organised and unorganised sectors since it is based on all kinds of households, CMIE said.

Employment in November 2020 was at 393.6 million, 2.4 per cent lower than it was a year ago, in November 2019.

In spite of the smart recovery, employment in each of the months since March 2020 has remained significantly lower than the levels in the corresponding months of 2019, as per CMIE. Employment has not reached the year-ago levels by any measure, it added.

"Interestingly, the number of persons who report themselves as unemployed and are also actively looking for work has also been declining," it said.

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