Unemployment rate shoots up to 12-month high of 11.9% in May
Unemployment for June 2020 had come down to 10.18 per cent in June 2020 after it touched its peak of 23 per cent amid severe lockdown curbs in May 2020
Manoj Sharma | June 3, 2021 | Updated 15:32 IST
Over 1 crore people lost their jobs because of the second wave of coronavirus
The unemployment rate shot up to a 12-month high at 11.9 per cent in May compared to 7.97 per cent in April as most states remained under lockdown amid the second wave of Covid-19, data from the private think tank Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) shows.
Unemployment for June 2020 had come down to 10.18 per cent after it touched its peak of 23 per cent amid severe lockdown curbs in May 2020. The high unemployment rate for May reflects joblessness across urban and rural areas. Urban and rural areas account for 14.73 per cent and 10.63 per cent unemployment rate, respectively.
The unemployment rate had come down to 10.18% in June 2020 after touching the peak of 23% in April and May 2020 during the nationwide lockdown. As per the data, surge in unemployment rates has been driven by significant increase in urban unemployment rates at 14.73% in May compared to 9.78% in April and rural unemployment rate at 10.63% as against 7.13% in April 2021.
Ramesh Ram, 31, is listed as a textile industry staff worker in the administration s database of migrant workers in south west Bihar s Kaimur district. But for the last three years, Ram has worked as a contract labourer among the tens of thousands employed at the Alang ship-breaking and recycling yard in Gujarat, making enough to get by. Today, Ram is back in his village, with no work, no capital to till his small parcel of land, and living in penury with his family of six, which includes three young daughters aged 6, 8 and 10. Even before the second Covid-19 wave hit India this February, tens of millions of workers such as Ram had barely managed to recover from the adverse economic effects of the nationwide lockdown to control the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
According to Karanth, it is clear that the IT sector is going to be driving the job growth this year as it is showing "huge bullishness" in terms of hiring. "We see close to 30,000 active jobs getting recruited by the IT sector every month for the next 12 months," he said.
India's economy has been hit hard by the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. Though it appears that the economic damage during the second wave has been less than 2020, key growth indicators indicate otherwise. Here is all you need to know.