BENGALURU: The State of Working India (SWI) 2019 report, released on Tuesday by the Bengaluru-based Azim Premji University has said that five million men lost their jobs between 2016 and 2018. The beginning of the decline in jobs coincides with demonetisation in November 2016, although no direct causal relationship can be established based only on these trends, adds the report.

The report has also found that in addition to rising unemployment among the higher educated, less educated workers have also seen job losses and reduced work opportunities since 2016.

The report on India’s labour market is based on the Consumer Pyramids Survey of the Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy (CMIE-CPDX). CMIE is a Mumbai-based business information company with an independent think tank. This survey is an ongoing nationally representative panel survey of around 1.6 lakh households and 5.22 lakh individuals, conducted every four months.

“In the absence of official numbers from the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), the only other household survey available for us to take stock of the employment situation is the Consumer Pyramids Survey of the Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy (CMIE-CPDX),” said Amit Basole, associate professor at Azim Premji University.

Rising unemployment among less educated

The report says that unemployment has risen steadily post 2011. “The overall unemployment rate to be around 6% in 2018, double of what it was in the decade from 2000 to 2011. In addition to rising open unemployment among the higher educated, the less educated (and likely, informal) workers have also seen job losses and reduced work opportunities since 2016”.

Women affected more

Among urban women, graduates are 10% of the working age population but 34% of the unemployed. The age group 20-24 years is over-represented among the unemployed. Among urban men, this age group accounts for 13.5% of the working age population but 60% of the unemployed. In general, women are much worse affected than men. They have higher unemployment rates as well as lower labour force participation rates.

