Unemployment ...before it become unmanageable
Two piece of information regarding the employment condition in the country came to my notice yesterday. The first piece was encouraging. The latest data released by the Employees State Insurance Corporation says "A whopping 19.6 lakh new employees were added to the payroll of Indian companies in November 2019. This is the second highest monthly addition of new employees in the formal sector after 19.86 lacs addition in July 2019. The second piece of information was rather disturbing. As per the latest release of the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), the employment rate in the country rose to 7.5% during September - December 2019 period. Reportedly, this is the highest rate of unemployment in 45 years. The unemployment has recorded consistent increase since 2017 (post demonetization). As per the CMIE data release: (a) The unemployment in the urban areas is at 9%, much higher than the rural areas and the national average. This could b...