The labour force in India has increased by 8.8 million from 428.4 million in March 2022 to 437.2 million in April 2022. As per the CMIE, unemployment stood at 7.83% in April compared to 7.57% in March.
The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy said, One of the largest monthly increases, with working-age people who were out of the labour force joining back the labour market in April.
The increase in employment in industry and services were not of good quality jobs. As per the CMIE, the increase in employment was largely among daily wage labourers and small traders while there was almost no change in salaried jobs.
CMIE said in a report this week, “People who could have been in the labour force but had chosen to sit out were now flooding the labour markets.”
“This is the opposite effect of the phenomenon where disappointed people move out of the labour force. Implicitly, April saw some of these disappointed people, or quitters, coming back into the labour markets.”
This 8.8 million increase in the labour force in April has come after a 12 million fall in the labour market during the preceding three months when labour moved out of the labour markets during January-March.
However, employment expanded by 7 million in April 2022, which was higher than the preceding months but was inadequate to absorb the sudden surge in demand for work.
CMIE said in its weekly labour market analysis, “This is also an extraordinarily large increase and comes after three consecutive months of decline in employment.”
The high surge in the labour force coming back and inadequate employment opportunities resulted in a 1.8 million increase in the count of the unemployed in the month pushing the total number of unemployed to 34.2 million.
“As a result, April also saw an increase in the number of people left unemployed and the unemployment rate inched up a bit compared to its level in March,” CMIE said in its weekly labour market analysis.
According to CMIE, the increase in employment in April was in the industry and in services. While industry added 5.5 million jobs, services added another 6.7 million jobs in April.
Jobs decline in agriculture; offset by an increase in manufacturing, services
The agricultural sector, however, shed 5.2 million jobs on the back of the winding up of the rabi season and a decline in wheat production.
The manufacturing industry added 3 million jobs and construction added nearly 4 million.
Mining and utilities, however, reported sharp declines in employment, probably coinciding with the coal shortages and the consequent stress in the power sector in India.
