Meghalaya’s unemployment rate second lowest in Aug

MUMBAI, Sep 1: Chhattisgarh and Meghalaya had the lowest unemployment rates in India for the month of August, data released by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) said on Thursday.
In sharp contrast, India’s unemployment rate surged to a one-year high of 8.3% in August as employment sequentially fell by two million to 394.6 million, CMIE said.
During July, the unemployment rate was at 6.8% and the employment was 397 million, the data added.
The unemployment rate in rural India rose from 6.1% in July to 7.7% in August. More importantly, the employment rate fell from 37.6% to 37.3%.
The unemployment was the lowest in Chhattisgarh (0.4%) followed by Meghalaya (2%), Maharashtra (2.2%) and Gujarat and Odisha (2.6% each), the data showed.
The unemployment was the highest in Haryana (37.3%) followed by Jammu and Kashmir (32.8%), Rajasthan (31.4%), Jharkhand (17.3%) and Tripura (16.3%), according to the data.
“The urban unemployment rate is usually higher at about 8% than the rural unemployment rate, which is usually around 7%. In August the urban unemployment rate shot up to 9.6% and rural unemployment rate also increased to 7.7%,” CMIE managing director Mahesh Vyas said. (With PTI inputs)