Jobless rate at 5.6%, women's work participation down in May, shows data

Unemployment in May rose to 5.6 per cent with youth and women most affected, while labour force participation fell to 54.8 per cent, latest PLFS data shows

The unemployment rate soared to 5.6 per cent in May from 5.1 per cent a month earlier, a rise which experts attributed to a slowdown in farm activities after the harvest season of Rabi crops.

 

The headline unemployment rate for people of age 15 years and above in the current weekly status (CWS) terms for rural areas rose to 5.1 per cent from 4.5 per cent. For the urban areas, it touched 6.9 per cent, up from 6.5 per cent in April, according to the monthly periodic labour force survey (PLFS) data, released by the National Statistics Office (NSO) on Monday.

 

Data further showed that while the unemployment rate among men stood at 5.6 per cent during the month, the jobless rate among women was a tad higher at 5.8 per cent. 

 

In CWS, the activity status is determined on the reference period over the past seven days preceding the date of the survey. Under this, a person is considered as unemployed in a week if they did not work even for one hour on any day during the reference week but sought or were available for work at least for one hour on any day during the reference week. 

 

Meanwhile, the labour force participation rate (LFPR) -- which is a measure of the number of people either working or looking for work -- declined to 54.8 per cent in May from 55.6 per cent in April. In rural areas, the figure stood at 56.9 per cent, while in urban areas, it stood at 50.4 per cent, down from 58 per cent and 50.7 per cent respectively.   

 

For men, the LFPR stood at 77.2 per cent and for women, it stood at 33.2 per cent in May, down from 77.7 per cent and 34.2 per cent in April respectively. 

 

Among youth (15-29 age group), the jobless rate shot up to 15 per cent from 13.8 per cent, with females having a higher rate (16.3 per cent) than men (14.5 per cent). This figure is important because people belonging to this age group are usually first-timers in the labour market and this metric reflects its robustness.

 

The sampling methodology of PLFS has been revamped by the NSO from January 2025 in a bid to estimate the key employment and unemployment indicators on a monthly basis for rural and urban areas in the CWS method at all India level.

 

The new methodology also aims to extend the coverage of the quarterly results of PLFS to rural areas and estimate key employment and unemployment indicators in both usual status (ps+ss) and CWS in both rural and urban areas annually.

 

Among a key change in the methodology, a rotational panel sampling design is used in which each selected household is visited four times in four consecutive months, in the beginning with the first visit schedule in the first month and other three with the revisit schedule in the following three months for both rural and urban areas.  

 

The present monthly bulletin is the second in the series for the month of May 2025. 

 

“Users of PLFS results need to consider the changes implemented in PLFS from January 2025 while comparing PLFS results with estimates released through PLFS publications up to December, 2024,” said NSO in a statement.