Unemployment Rate in India increased to 5.20 percent in September from 5.10 percent in August of 2025. This dataset provides - India Unemployment Rate - actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.

The statistic shows the unemployment rate in India from 1999 to 2024. In 2024, the unemployment rate in India was estimated to be 4.2 percent. India's economy in comparison to other BRIC states India possesses one of the fastest-growing economies in the world and as a result, India is recognized as one of the G-20 major economies as well as a member of the BRIC countries, an association that is made up of rapidly growing economies. As well as India, three other countries, namely Brazil, Russia and China, are BRIC members. India’s manufacturing industry plays a large part in the development of its economy; however its services industry is the most significant economical factor. The majority of the population of India works in this sector. India’s notable economic boost can be attributed to significant gains over the past decade in regards to the efficiency of the production of goods as well as maintaining relatively low debt, particularly when compared to the total amount earned from goods and services produced throughout the years. When considering individual development as a country, India progressed significantly over the years. However, in comparison to the other emerging countries in the BRIC group, India’s progress was rather minimal. While China experienced the most apparent growth, India’s efficiency and productivity remained somewhat stagnant over the course of 3 or 4 years. India also reported a rather large trade deficit over the past decade, implying that its total imports exceeded its total amount of exports, essentially forcing the country to borrow money in order to finance the nation. Most economists consider trade deficits a negative factor, especially in the long run and for developing or emerging countries.

As of May 2022, the unemployment rate in India was recorded at nearly ***** percent, a decrease from the previous month. While the unemployment rate had significantly declined over the course of 2021 since having peaked in **********, the breakout of new coronavirus variants coupled with recurring lockdowns resulted in a fluctuating trend of unemployment gripping the nation. The trickle-down effect Between February and April 2020, the share of households that experienced a fall in income shot up to nearly ** percent. Inflation rates on goods and services including food products and fuel were expected to rise later this year. Social distancing resulted in job losses, specifically those within Indian society’s lower economic strata. Several households terminated domestic help services – essentially an unorganized monthly-paying job. Most Indians spent a large amount of time engaging in household chores themselves, making it the most widely practiced lockdown activity. Aid from the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana The most devastating impact of the virus and the lockdown had been on the economically backward classes, with limited access to proper healthcare and other resources. As a result the government launched various programs and campaigns to help sustain such households. Under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana, *** billion Indian rupees were accrued and provided to around 331 million beneficiaries that included women, construction workers, farmers, and senior citizens. More aid was announced in mid-May, to mainly support small businesses through the crisis.

Context

The dataset contains the Unemployment rate in India from 2015-2021.

Content

The dataset contains many files which are in .txt format. All files are already preprocessed and comma-separated. Some of the files have data on weekly basis in an urban and rural area, whereas, some of the files have a monthly basis.

Source: https://unemploymentinindia.cmie.com/

As per the Periodic Labour Force Survey of 2024, the unemployment rate among individuals with secondary education and above was 7.1 percent, the highest among other levels of education. Although the unemployment rate within this category fell from the previous financial year. Potential of the education sectorIndia's education sector is estimated to be valued at around 117 billion U.S. dollars, and it is expected to grow to 225 billion U.S. dollars by 2025. It is a growing trend for many young Indians to attain two or three degrees in the hope of attaining a job. One of the largest young populations in the world presents a unique opportunity for the country in the education sector. Educated unemployed Youth unemployment in India was over 15 percent in 2023. This is despite the abundance of highly educated professionals. The data suggests a sharp mismatch between the skills of the labor force and job creation. The lack of jobs in the non-farm sector for the newly graduated young population is a major cause of worry for the Indian economy.

india - Youth Unemployment Rate for India was 16.03% in January of 2024, according to the United States Federal Reserve. Historically, india - Youth Unemployment Rate for India reached a record high of 20.82 in January of 2021 and a record low of 15.66 in January of 2023. Trading Economics provides the current actual value, an historical data chart and related indicators for india - Youth Unemployment Rate for India - last updated from the United States Federal Reserve on September of 2025.

Unemployment Rate in India - nationwide, state-wise, rural and urban employment, and comparison with global peers.

Data Source - https://unemploymentinindia.cmie.com/kommon/bin/sr.php?kall=wsttimeseries&index_code=050050000000&dtype=total

Unemployment rate of India of different states are given from Jan 2016 to June 2021

In 2024, the estimated youth unemployment rate in India was at 16.03 percent. According to the source, the data are ILO estimates. For the past decade, India’s youth unemployment rate has been hovering around the 22 percent mark. What is the youth unemployment rate?The youth unemployment rate refers to those in the workforce who are aged 15 to 24 years and without a job, but actively seeking one. Generally, youth unemployment rates are higher than the adult unemployment rates, and India is no exception: youth unemployment in India is significantly higher than the national unemployment rate. The Indian workforce, young and oldIndia’s unemployment rate in general is not remarkably high when compared to those of other countries. Both India’s unemployment rate and youth unemployment rate are below their global equivalents. In a comparison of the Asia-Pacific region countries, India ranks somewhere in the middle, with Cambodia’s unemployment rate being estimated to be below one percent, and Afghanistan’s the highest at 8.8 percent.

Abstract

The objective of PLFS is primarily on two aspects. The first is to measure the dynamics in labour force participation and employment status in the short time interval of three months for the urban areas only in the Current Weekly Status (CWS). Thus, in every quarter, PLFS brings out the level and change estimates of the key labour force indicators in CWS viz. Worker Population Ratio (WPR), Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR), Unemployment Rate (UR). Secondly, for both rural and urban areas, level estimates of all important parameters in both usual status and CWS are brought out annually.

Geographic coverage

The survey covers the whole of the Indian Union except the villages in Andaman and Nicobar Islands which remain extremely difficult to access throughout the year. 12800 FSUs (7024 villages and 5776 UFS blocks) are covered annually at all-India level.

Analysis unit

Households and Individuals

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

A rotational panel sampling design are used in urban area. The rotational scheme will be of two years duration to accommodate the changes in the urban frame in the intercensal period; in the sense that the sampling frames for both rural and urban areas remain unchanged for every two-year duration. In this rotational panel scheme each selected household in urban areas are visited four times - one with first visit schedule and other three with revisit schedule. The estimates can be given for successive quarters without any break in the series (starting from the fifth quarter), ensuring a 75% matching between consecutive quarters. Regression based estimates will not be generated. Instead, usual traditional design-based estimates will be generated. The proposed design aims at generating quarterly estimates of level and change parameters of some important labour force indicators (LFPR, WPR & UR) based on CWS data in urban areas and annual estimates of level parameters based on usual status for both rural and urban areas in the line of employment & unemployment survey of NSS quinquennial round.

Rotational panel design for urban areas i. The initial rotational panel is for two years, where only 25% FSUs of urban annual allocation are covered in the first quarter (Panel P11) with detail listing and canvassing of visit 1 schedule in the selected households; where Pij indicates the panel belonging to jth quarter of the ith two-year period of rotation. ii. Another 25% FSUs is covered in the second quarter (Panel P12) for taking up visit 1 schedule and revisit schedule is administered in the selected households of Panel P11. iii. A new panel P13 of 25% FSUs are surveyed in third quarter with visit 1 schedule and revisit schedules will be administered in the households of panels P11 & P12. iv. In the fourth quarter, households of panels P11, P12 & P13 are surveyed with revisit schedule and a new panel P14 with 25% FSUs for visit 1 schedule. v. In the subsequent quarters of second year 75% FSUs (3 panels - P12, P13 & P14) are common and an earlier panel (P11) is replaced by a new panel (P15) for canvassing visit 1 schedule. This continues till 8th quarter. vi. All the FSUs of the panels P11, P12, ...., P18 (each of which is with 25% of FSUs) are selected before commencement of survey in the first quarter. vii. At the end of the second year of each two-year duration, updated frame is used for both rural and urban areas. viii. FSUs of another set of panels P21, P22, ..., P28 selected from the updated frame is made ready before commencement of first quarter of third year (first quarter of the second two-year duration). These panels P21 to P28 take care of the changes in the urban frame during the intercensal period. ix. In the ninth quarter (first quarter of the second two-year duration), panel P21 selected from the updated frame is introduced and the panels P16, P17 and P18 of the old frame is surveyed. x. This scheme continue for another 2 years with the introduction of panels P22 to P28 each in one quarter for the subsequent 7 quarters till the end of the fourth year (second year of the two-year period). xi. This scheme of rotation of panels enable generation of estimates of change parameters with 75% matching and 25% of unmatched samples from fifth quarter onwards. xii. One of the main advantages of this plan of rotation is that there will not be any break in the series of estimates of the change parameters starting from 5th quarter. xiii. Since major changes in the rural-urban frame occurs in the Census years (say for the year 2023-24), provision is to be made to generate estimates without break in the series of estimates considering panels from pre and post-census frames. Rural samples

For rural areas, samples for all the 8 quarters are selected before commencement of survey for each two-year period, while the frame remains same for this duration. In each quarter, only 25% FSUs of annual allocation (as is done in each sub-round of NSS rounds) are covered in rural areas so that independent estimates can be generated for each quarter. For this purpose, quarterly allocation will be multiple of 2 for drawing interpenetrating sub-samples.

Mode of data collection

Face-to-face [f2f]

Labor Force Participation Rate in India increased to 55.30 percent in September from 55 percent in August of 2025. This dataset provides - India Labor Force Participation Rate - actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.

The statistic shows the unemployment rates in major industrial and emerging countries in 2024. In India, the estimated unemployment rate in 2024 was at 4.3 percent.

In rural India, close to 1.8 percent of females and more than two percent of males were unemployed, while the unemployment rate was higher in urban India. Urban women had a higher unemployment rate than rural women in the country.

During the financial year 2023, the unemployment rate in Delhi was 1.9 percent, down from the previous year's rate of 6.3 percent. The male unemployment rate was 1.8 percent and lower than the female unemployment.

With an unemployment rate of 14.1 percent, the urban areas of Himachal Pradesh had the highest unemployment rate in financial year 2023, followed by Andaman & Nicobar Islands. However, urban women had a higher unemployment rate than rural women in the country.

Graph and download economic data for Employment to Population Ratio for India (SLEMPTOTLSPZSIND) from 1991 to 2024 about employment-population ratio, India, population, and employment.

In 2024, the unemployment rate in Worldwide stood at 4.89 percent. Between 1991 and 2024, the figure dropped by 0.24 percentage points, though the decline followed an uneven course rather than a steady trajectory.

Key information about India Labour Force Participation Rate

• India Labour Force Participation Rate increased to 45.1 % in Dec 2024, compared with 42.4 % in the previous year.
• India Labour Force Participation Rate is updated yearly, available from Dec 1990 to Dec 2024, with an average rate of 57.4 % .
• The data reached the an all-time high of 60.1 % in Dec 2000 and a record low of 36.9 % in Dec 2018.
• India Labour Force Participation Rate is reported by reported by CEIC Data.
• In the latest reports, India Population reached 1,408.0 million people in Mar 2025.
• Unemployment Rate of India increased to 7.1 % in Dec 2020.

In 2025, the Masters of Business Administration domain had the highest employability rating among degree types in India at about ** percent, an increase from the previous year. The polytechnic domain had the lowest employability rate of around ** percent. What is employability? Employability refers to attributes that make an individual gain and maintain employment. This may include job-specific or soft skills. Higher employability is considered a precondition for achieving a higher employment rate. Although employability in India has increased to over ** percent from ** percent over a decade ago, there has remained a critical skill mismatch between education and skills. In other words, Indian graduates have been facing a disconnect between what is taught at colleges and what the industry demands. Enhancing employability through skill development Government initiatives like the National Skill Development Corporation and Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana aim to promote skill development in India. Public-private partnerships (PPP) have also been instrumental in making skill development initiatives effective in India. For example, TCS has partnered with educational institutions to provide vocational training in digital literacy and soft skills. Other industry giants like Samsung and IBM are planning to launch special training programs in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in collaboration with the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC).

Os dados de Taxa de Desemprego da Índia foram registrados em 7.11 % em 2020. Este é um registro de um aumento com relação aos números anteriores de 5.27 % em 2019. Os dados de Taxa de Desemprego da Índia são atualizados anualmente, com uma média de 5.66 % em 1991 até 2020, com 30 observações. Os dados alcançaram um alto recorde de 7.11 % em 2020 e um baixo recorde de 5.27 % em 2019. Os dados de Taxa de Desemprego da Índia permanecem com status ativo na CEIC e são reportados pela fonte: CEIC Data. Os dados são classificados sob o Global Database’ Índia – Table IN.G007: Unemployment Rate.