Media Release

India unemployment rate up to 9.84% in Aug’16

Mumbai: September 01, 2016: The unemployment rate in India rose to 9.84 per cent in August 2016 according to data on unemployment and consumer sentiments by BSE and CMIE.

BSE, the world’s fastest stock exchange with the speed of 6 microseconds and CMIE, India's leading business information company, had launched world’s first high-frequency data on unemployment and consumer sentiments in the month of April 2016. 

The unemployment rate was 8.65 per cent in July 2016 and 8.84 per cent in June 2016. The rise in unemployment in August breaks a falling trend in unemployment that began after May 2016 when the rate was 10.16 per cent.

Shri Ashishkumar Chauhan, MD & CEO, BSE said “The rise in unemployment in urban India poses a challenge. It is apparently an outcome of low capacity utilisation as is evident from RBI's OBICUS surveys and low investment activity as is seen in CMIE's CapEx surveys. Urban flooding is also likely to have impacted the employment status of daily workers in the towns. As the floods have receded, employment may improve again.”

Shri Mahesh Vyas, MD & CEO, CMIE said “Advent of the south west monsoon that led to sowing and other farm activities from early June had apparently absorbed a large part of the labour force that remained unemployed during the dry pre-monsoon month of May. However, the sharp rise in unemployment shows a possible slowing down of rural economic activity. This is possibly because of intense rains that caused flooding in several parts of the country. This could have seriously impacted both agricultural labourers and non-agricultural rural daily wage earners. Hopefully, this situation will improve in September”

The increase in unemployment in August was spread across urban and rural regions. The urban India continued to face higher unemployment rates compared to rural regions. Unemployment rose in urban India to 11.24 per cent from 10.76 per cent in July 2016. Unemployment in this region has been close to 10 per cent or higher during all months of 2016, so far.

While unemployment has been lower in rural regions, the rate rose to its highest level since January 2016, to 9.18 per cent in August 2016.

Unemployment rates are generated as a public good under a joint and private initiative of BSE and CMIE. This initiative produces the only monthly time-series of India's unemployment rate. It also produces a daily 30-day moving average series. For details please visit www.bseindia.com or http://unemploymentinindia.cmie.com

Media Contact

Yatin Padia

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Yatin.padia@bseindia.com