India's unemployment rate rose since 2019, after dropping 6.6% in 2021-22, per Azim Premji report

Open unemployment rate in India has declined to 6.6 per cent in 2021-22 but there has been very weak growth in real labour earning post-Covid, a report by Azim Premji University said on Wednesday, 19 September.

According to the report, the share of workers with regular wage or salaried work started increasing in 2004 from 18 per cent to 25 per cent for men and 10 per cent to 25 per cent for women.

Between 2004 and 2017, around 3 million regular wage jobs were created annually which jumped to 5 million per year between 2017 and 2019. However, the pace of regular wage job creation decreased since 2019 due to the growth slowdown and the pandemic, the report said.

"The workforce has grown in size, participation rates have risen, and unemployment has fallen. As of 2021-22, the rate of open unemployment had dropped from a high of 8.7 per cent in 2017-18 to 6.6 per cent. The fall is registered both in rural and urban areas among men and women," the report said.

According to a report, unemployment is falling but remains high.

"Post-Covid, the unemployment rate is lower than it was pre-Covid, for all education levels. But it remains above 15 per cent for graduates and more worryingly it touches a huge 42 per cent for graduates under 25 years," the report said.

The unemployment rate has declined from over 40 per cent for educated youth under 25 years of age to less than 5 per cent for graduates who are 35 years and above.

"This indicates that eventually graduates do find jobs but the key questions are, what is the nature of jobs they find and do these match their skills and aspirations?" the report said.

The report said that scheduled caste workers were more than five times over-represented in waste-related work and over four times in leather-related work in the early 1980s which has declined rapidly over time, though it is not completely eliminated as of 2021-22.

"In the leather industry, the representation index declined sharply to 1.4 in 2021. In waste management and sewerage, over-representation of SCs decreased to 1.6 times in 2011 before increasing slightly again," the report said.