Weekly Unemployment Rate Spikes To 17.4% In Urban Areas: CMIE

Weekly unemployment rate rose for the fourth straight week to the highest since June last year, according to the Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy.

Unemployment rate rose to 14.73% for the week ended May 23, led by a spike in urban areas even as unemployment in rural areas eased.

• The urban unemployment rate rose to 17.4% for the week ended May 23 compared with 14.7% in the previous week.
• Rural unemployment rate eased to 13.5% from 14.3% during the period.

Monthly unemployment rate in April rose to 8% and will rise further in May because of rising curbs on mobility and economic activity because of localised lockdowns to combat the second wave. But it still remains significantly lower than the 21.7% recorded in May last year during the national lockdown.

Worst Hit To Activity Likely In May

The labour participation rate moderated to 39.4% from 40.5%, with the unemployment rate up at 14.7% from 14.4% last week, near the one-year high, said a research note by Nomura on Monday. Along with the continued hit to mobility and weakening power demand, that pushed the Nomura India Business Resumption Index to 60 for the week ended May 23, from 63 the prior week.

The index is now 40 percentage points below pre-pandemic levels, at levels last seen in June 2020 after having fully recovered in February.

Lockdowns look to spill into June but a few states are announcing a slow rollback of restrictions as their virus caseloads fall, which suggests a sequential improvement in activity in June, Nomura said.