Unemployment rate at 5.4% in Q1

The unemployment rate in the first quarter (April-June) this financial year stood at 5.4 per cent in the country, showed the first ever quarterly periodic labour force survey (PLFS) data, released for both rural and urban areas by the National Statistics Office (NSO) on Monday.

- SHIVA RAJORA

The data showed that the headline unemployment rate for people aged 15 years and above in current weekly status (CWS) terms for rural areas stood at 4.8 per cent, while the rate for the urban areas was recorded at 6.8 per cent.

In CWS, activity is determined on the reference period over the past seven days preceding the date of the survey. Under this, a person is considered unemployed in a week if she or he did not work even for one hour on any day during the reference week but sought or was available for work at least for one hour on any day during the reference week.