The unemployment rate during the January-March quarter of 2023 eased to at least a five-quarter low. The rate had accelerated sharply during the Covid-19 pandemic as curbs were imposed to prevent the spread of the deadly virus. The rate for workers above 15 years has been slowing since the lifting of the curbs. In the October-December 2022 quarter, the rate was 7.2% similar to the rate in July-September 2022.
Data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) on Monday showed the unemployment rate for females in the 15 years and above category eased to 9.2% in the March quarter from 9.6% in the previous three month period..
The strict lockdown imposed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus had pushed the overall unemployment rate to 20.9% in the April-June quarter of 2020, raising worries about the job situation across the country.
For males in the 15 years and above category, the unemployment rate slowed to 6% in the March quarter, and below the 6.5% in the October-December period and lower than the 7.7% in the January-March quarter of 2022.
The labour force participation rate, which is defined as the percentage of persons in the labour force (working or seeking or available for work) in the population, marginally improved to 48.5% in the January-March quarter of 2023 quarter from 48.2 % in the October-December period and above the 47.3% in the January-March 2022 period. For females, it inched up to 22.7% in the January- March quarter from 22.3% in the October-December 2022 period. The rate was at 20.4% in the January-March quarter of 2022.
The NSO released the quarterly bulletin of the Periodic Labour Force(PLFS) survey, which is a key indicator of the measure of labour force participation rate, the worker population ratio and the unemployment rate. The unemployment rate is defined as the percentage of persons unemployed in the labour force. The PLFS was launched by the NSO to estimate the employment and unemployment indicators (worker population ratio, labour force participation rate, unemployment rate) in the short time interval of three months for urban areas only in the current weekly status.
Under CWS a person is considered as unemployed in a week if he/she did not work even for one hour on any day during the reference week but sought or was available for work at least for one hour on any day during the reference week, according to the PLFS. The annual PLFS report covers both rural and urban areas whereas the quarterly bulletin is for urban centres.
