The maiden monthly labour force survey released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) on Thursday said India’s unemployment rate stood at 5.1% in April. Urban areas recorded a higher joblessness rate of 6.5% and nearly 14 out of every 100 youth unable to find work.

Notably, the April’s headline unemployment rate was slightly higher than the 4.9% recorded in 2024, as per the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS).

Advertisement

However, the NSO emphasised that the figures are not comparable, as the PLFS sampling methodology has been revamped to estimate key employment indicators on a monthly basis.

The survey pegged the labour force participation rate (LFPR) at 42% in April. Overall LFPR stood at 41.2% in rural areas and 39.9% in urban areas.

The LFPR was much lower for females at 26.2%, compared to 57.8% for males.

Joblessness among those in the age group of 15-29 was 13.8% across the country, the report said. The rate of unemployment in urban areas stood at 17.2%, while it was 12.3% in rural areas, it added.

Among those aged 15 years and above looking for work in rural areas, the unemployment rate was 4.5% in current weekly status (CWS) terms.

It is to be highlighted that under the CWS method, a person’s activity status is determined based on the reference period of the past seven days preceding the date of the survey.

A person is considered unemployed during the week if they did not work for even one hour on any day but were either seeking or available for work for at least one hour on any day of that week.

Worker Population Ratio (WPR) in rural areas among those aged 15 years and above was 55.4% in April, the data showed. The ratio in urban areas was 47.4%, while the overall WPR at the national level was recorded at 52.8% in April.

WPR defines the proportion of those who are employed among total population.