More joblessness: ILO sees India's unemployment rate rising to 3.5% in 2018

According to ILO's latest report, the number of jobless in the country will increase to 18.6 million in 2018 and 18.9 million in 2019, against 18.3 million in 2017

India could witness a higher unemployment rate of 3.5 per cent in 2018, a little more than the 3.4 per cent projected earlier, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has said in its latest report.
 
The unemployment rate in the country will stand at 3.5 per cent in 2018 and 2019 – the same level of unemployment seen in 2017 and 2016, the ILO’s ‘World Employment and Social Outlook: Trends 2018’ report said. In its 2017 report, the ILO had projected unemployment rate in India at 3.4 per cent in 2017 and 2018. The ILO said the unemployment rate at a global level would decline for the first time in three years.
 
According to its latest report, the number of jobless in the country will increase to 18.6 million in 2018 and 18.9 million in 2019, against 18.3 million in 2017. In last year’s report, the ILO had forecast that the number of unemployed in the country is expected to be 18 million in 2018 and had estimated the unemployment figure for 2017 at 17.8 million. So, the number of unemployed persons in India in 2017 was 0.5 million more than ILO’s previous year estimates.
 
This comes days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a television interview, rejected the criticism of providing jobless growth, saying "lies" were being spread about employment generation and furnished data from a recent study to say seven million jobs had been created in the current financial year.
 
The ILO has, on the contrary, projected a dip in unemployment rate globally from 5.6 per cent in 2017 to 5.5 per cent in 2018 and 2019. In its 2017 report, the ILO had projected the global unemployment rate at 5.8 per cent for 2017 and 2018. Globally, 192.3 million people will remain unemployed in 2018 – a slight dip from 192.7 million in 2017.

“According to the ILO’s new estimates, based on improved data sets and methodologies, the global unemployment rate is expected to fall slightly to 5.5 per cent in 2018 (from 5.6 per cent in 2017), marking a turnaround after three years of rising unemployment rates. However, with a growing number of people entering the labour market to seek employment, the total number of unemployed is expected to remain stable in 2018, above 192 million,” the ILO report stated.
 
According to ILO's estimates, the unemployment rate in India dipped from 3.6 per cent in 2012 to 3.4 per cent in 2014. It, however, rose to 3.5 per cent in 2015 and the unemployment rate has remained unchanged since then.