Unemployment rate surges to 7.77% in October from 6.43% in a month: CMIE

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The unemployment rate in India rose to 7.77 percent in October compared to a four-year low of 6.43 percent in September, data from Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) show.

Among the 25 states for which data is available with the CMIE, six states - Bihar (14.5 percent), Haryana (31.8 percent), Jammu and Kashmir (22.4 percent), Jharkhand (16.5 percent), Rajasthan (30.7 percent), and Tripura (10.5 percent) - registered the unemployment rate in double digits.

Madhya Pradesh recordrd the lowest unemployment rate at 0.9 percent, followed by Chhattisgrah at 0.9 percent, Odisha at 1.1 percent, and Gujrat at 1.7 percent.

According to the data, rural unemployment has seen a steep surge from 5.8 percent in October to 8 percent in September.

The rural unemployment rate surged to 8.04 percent from 5.84 percent in September, while the urban jobless rate moderated to 7.21 percent compared with 7.7 percent in the previous month. The spike can be attributed to the harvesting period of the Kharif crop which is between September and the first half of October. This results in a dip in October in rural employment, before it picks up in November when sowing for winter crops begins.

Among the industries, employment in agriculture has been falling over the last year. The CMIE data shows it peaked at 164 million in November 2021. Since then, it fell rapidly to a low of 134 million in September. Its recovery in October 2022 at 139.6 million is the lowest agriculture employment seen in any October of the last four years.