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Unemployment rate hit 3-mth high of 5% in Jan
Business Standard
|February 17, 2026
India’s unemployment rate edged up to a three-month high of 5 percent in January, reflecting seasonal weakness in rural labour markets and a post-harvest slowdown, according to the latest Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLES) monthly bulletin released by the National Statistics Office (NSO) on Monday.
The NSO placed the urban unemployment rate in current weekly status terms at 7 percent in January, a marginal increase from 6.7 per cent in December. In rural areas, this rate rose to 4.2 percent, also marking a three-month high.
Under the current weekly status framework, activity status is determined over the seven days preceding the survey. A person is classified as unemployed if he/she did not work for even one hour on any day during the reference week but sought or was available for work for at least one hour on any day during that period.
This story is from the February 17, 2026 edition of Business Standard.
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