Despite nationwide rise in unemployment amid coronavirus lockdown, Chhattisgarh's unemployment rate surprisingly hit a 12-month low of 3.4% in April 2020. It is according to a survey conducted by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE).
As per CMIE survey unemployment in Chhattisgarh was much less than the national rate of 23.5%. Nationwide, unemployment was highest in Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand, and Bihar at 49.8%, 47.1%, and 46.6% respectively whereas it was lowest in Punjab, Chhattisgarh, and Telangana at 2.9%, 3.4%, and 6.2% respectively.
“The extension of lockdown is only expected to further hit the labour market conditions, Mahesh Vyas, Managing Director and CEO, Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE)”, said.
"The employment rate has fallen from 40 per cent in February to 26 per cent now. There is steep fall of 14 percentage points. This implies that 14 per cent of the working age population has lost employment. The working age population is of the order of a billion," an article on the CMIE website said.
The labour markets are under equal stress both in rural and urban areas, it added.
The rate of unemployment in rural India stands higher at 26.7 per cent as against urban 25.1 per cent. "During the last week of March and in the first two weeks of April, the unemployment rate hovered around 23-24 per cent. In the first week, it was 23.8 per cent; in the second week it dropped a bit to 23.4 per cent but in the third week it bounced back to 24 per cent.
“The variations were minor and collectively they confirmed that the unemployment rate had indeed risen to around 24 per cent following the lockdown," the CMIE report further said.