India’s unemployment rate stood at 6.1% in FY18, official data showed, highlighting the challenge that confronts the Narendra Modi-led government. The data isn’t comparable with that of past years, the government contended, in effect seeking to refute previous leaked reports that said they showed the unemployment rate was at a 45-year high.The Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) of the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) released on Friday showed the unemployment rate in the country in FY18 was at 5.3% in rural India and 7.8% in urban India, resulting in overall unemployment rate of 6.1%.“It is a new design, new metric. It would be unfair to compare it with the past,” said chief statistician Pravin Srivastava.“We can’t do a retrospective analysis based on the previous methodology — there was no (political) pressure,” said chief statistician Pravin Srivastava.He said this meant the data weren’t comparable. “When we change the matrix, it is very difficult to measure (compare) because there is no means to do a retrospective analysis in that year based on earlier matrix.”“Forty-five-year high or low is your interpretation,” Srivastava said. “The earlier data was captured using monthly per capita income to measure unemployment — now education is the criteria.”He also said the release of the report had not been postponed. “We have not delayed the report, we have only brought in new information.”The data for PLFS for January to March will be released next month, Srivastava said.“We have brought two quarterly data on labour survey. We are coming out with consumption expenditure survey for 2017-18. We are expecting it in June. You can then compare unemployment captured by that survey with PLFS,” Srivastava said.A leaked media report on the PLFS finding in January had said the unemployment rate in India was highest in FY18 at 6.1%, leading to a furore as the country headed for elections with the Opposition accusing the government of suppressing the data.The Niti Aayog subsequently said it was a draft report that had been leaked without verification of the data. The controversy raised questions over the autonomy and credibility of the National Statistical Commission (NSC). Two members of the NSC resigned following the leaked report.“There is no problem with the credibility and autonomy of NSC,” Srivastava said on Friday.“The NSC makes its recommendation, but the ministry has to consider it. The NSC has the role to see the statistical system in entirety in addition to statistics ministry and states,” he said, adding that there is no change in the functioning of the ministry.“The restructuring of the ministry was approved by the Cabinet. NSC is at an arm’s length to the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI). The internal restructuring has no impact on NSC,” he said.Former chief statistician Pronab Sen said the government will have to look at ways to revive the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) sector to create more jobs. “The quarterly GDP data is based on corporates who do not provide jobs. It is the MSME sector which has the potential to absorb jobs being shed by agriculture, and hence the focus should be on MSMEs,” he said.Highlighting the difference between the PLFS and the earlier quinquennial surveys conducted every five years, the MoSPI said the older assessments used paper forms to collect information on different aspects of the labour force. In the PLFS, information has been collected from all members of sample households using the computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) method with inbuilt validation rules through tablets.According to Srivastava, another way to look at unemployment is through the consumption expenditure survey for the FY18, the results of which will be out by June end.The highest unemployment rate was witnessed among urban females at 10.8% followed by males in urban India at 7.1%, rural males at 5.8% and 3.8% in rural females.The survey was conducted in 12,773 first-stage units (7,014 villages and 5,759 urban blocks) covering 102,113 households (56,108 in rural areas and 46,005 in urban areas) and enumerating 433,339 persons (246,809 in rural areas and 186,530 in urban areas).Explaining the rationale behind the high unemployment rate, MoSPI said that with the rise in education and household income, aspiration levels of educated youth have also risen.“Thus they may no longer be willing to join the labour force or workforce requiring low skills and low remuneration,” it said in a statement.According to MoSPI, there are various facets to the labour scenario and no single data source is complete by itself.“These data sets need to be supplemented by data from other sources so as to collectively give a holistic picture of the overall employment market,” it said, adding that the ministry has been bringing out a compilation of new subscribers to the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), Employees’ State Insurance Corp (ESIC) and National Pension System (NPS) to give an assessment of changes in the formal employment market.