India’s unemployment rate has jumped to a 45-year high at 6.1 per cent in the financial year 2017-2018, according to the official data released by the government on Friday, May 31, 2019. As per the data released by the labour ministry, about 7.8 per cent of all employable youth in the urban area is jobless, while, the 5.3 per cent of the rural employable youth remain unemployed. The joblessness among male on all India basis was 6.2 per cent, while it was 5.7 per cent in the case of females.
The periodic labour force data was made public along with GDP numbers for the Q4FY19 and provisional estimates for full FY19. The GDP grew at 5.8 per cent in the fourth quarter of FY19, even as the full fiscal 2019 saw a growth rate of 6.8 per cent, a 5-year low, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) data showed. Analysts in CNBC TV18 polls estimated Q4 growth at 6.3 per cent.
The Modi government was under constant crtiticism during its last term over the issue of jobs for the youth in the country. Even during the campaign period of the 2019 general elections, the opposition parties attacked the government for failing to generate adequate number of jobs for the country’s youth.
