Middle-income households account for largest chunk of India’s unemployed population: CMIE
According to CMIE, the poorest households accounted for 9.8% of all the households and only 3.2% of all the unemployed before the pandemic in 2019-20. However, in 2020-21 and the first half of 2021-22 they accounted for 16.6% of all households but still accounted for only 3.5% of all the unemployed
Source | economictimes.indiatimes.com | Yogima Seth Sharma
Bulk of India’s unemployed population is in the middle-income households that earn between Rs 2 lakh and Rs 5 lakh a year despite the fact that they have the highest labour participation rate among non-rich household groups, the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy said.
Citing its Consumer Pyramids Household Survey (CPHS) data, CMIE said the middle class households accounted for half of the total households and also half of the unemployed and the largest number of unemployed people while the average labour participation rate (LPR) of this group was 43% compared to the overall average LPR was 40.8%. Also, it experiences an elevated unemployment rate of over 9%.
“India’s biggest challenge on the employment front is to provide jobs that yield about Rs 2,00,000 a year to about 16 million unemployed in the middle class households,” CMIE said in its weekly labour market analysis.
