India's female unemployment fell to 8.6% in Q2, but quality of jobs a concern

The government’s Periodic Labour Force Survey is the only official jobs data published in India.

The female unemployment rate in urban India fell by 50 basis points to 8.6 percent in July-September even as their Labour Force Participation Rate rose by 80 basis points to 24.0 percent, data released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation on November 29 showed.

Despite the improvement in the headline employment numbers for females, questions remain over the quality of jobs they are getting into. As per the government's latest Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), the percentage of females employed in casual labour edged up to 6.9 percent from 6.8 percent in the first quarter of 2023-24. At the same time, the proportion of females with salaried jobs in July-September slumped to 52.8 percent from 54.0 percent in the previous quarter.

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One basis point is one-hundredth of a percentage point.

The percentage of females with salaried jobs stood at 55.0 percent in July-September 2022.

The percentage of males with salaried jobs also declined in the second quarter of 2023-24, but by 80 basis points, to 47.0 percent. The figure for males with a casual job was unchanged at 12.7 percent. The headline male unemployment rate increased by 10 basis points to 6.0 percent.

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The overall urban unemployment, meanwhile, held steady at 6.6 percent in the second quarter of 2023-24, unchanged from April-June. At 6.6 percent, the rate of unemployment in Indian cities remains at its lowest ever since the PLFS was started in 2018-19.

The survey, published on a quarterly basis for urban data, measures the unemployment rate in terms of Current Weekly Status (CWS). As per this definition, a person is considered employed if they worked for at least one hour on any day during the seven days preceding the day they are surveyed.

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Compared to an 80-basis-point increase in the female Labour Force Participation Rate in July-September, the number for males was 30 basis points higher at 73.8 percent. The overall Labour Force Participation Rate stood at 49.3 percent in July-September, up 50 basis points from April-June.

Nearly all the new jobs seemed to be in the agriculture sector, which accounted for 6.1 percent of the workers in July-September, up from 5.4 percent in April-June. Meanwhile, the proportion of employed in the secondary sector fell to 32.4 percent from 33.1 percent, while the figure for the tertiary sector was unchanged at 61.5 percent.

The rise in agricultural jobs in July-September was likely due to kharif sowing-related activity.