Uttarakhand unemployment rate higher than country’s; urban areas worst-affected
Union ministry of statistics and programme implementation on Friday released the findings of the withheld Periodic Labour Force Survey for 2017-18 conducted by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO). The report highlighted a surge in the unemployment rate to 6.1 per cent, a 45-year high.
While the report points towards a nationwide concern, the scenario is even grimmer for Uttarakhand where the unemployment rate stands at 7.6%, which is 1.5% higher than the national unemployment rate. The data pegged the unemployment rate among the urban youth of the state at a massive 27.7%.
Pointing towards a lack of job opportunities for skilled labour force in the state, the NSSO report further adds that the unemployment rate among post-graduates, graduates, and diploma holders in the state is 26.5%, 21.5%, and 18% respectively.
The findings of the survey also suggest that the women in the state find it even more difficult to bag a job as the number of women seeking jobs surpasses the number of job-seeking men, both in rural and urban areas. While the unemployment rate among post graduate and graduate women stood at 50% and 33.6% respectively, the rate is pegged at 17.3% and 18.6% respectively among post-graduate and graduate men.
Notably, the Periodic Labour Force Survey is the first annual household survey of the National Sample Survey Office. Its data was collected between July 2017 and June 2018. The 19 major states that were surveyed by NSSO were Haryana, Assam, Jharkhand, Kerala, Odisha, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
According to the report, Kerala has the highest unemployment rate at 11.4 per cent, followed by Haryana with 8.6 per cent. Meanwhile, Chhattisgarh logged the lowest unemployment rate at 3.3 per cent in 2017-18, followed by Madhya Pradesh at 4.5 per cent.
Madan Kaushik, state cabinet minister and spokesperson for the government, when queried about the findings of the report, said, “Yes, we are aware of the survey report. We are working towards curbing the unemployment rate and a number of projects have been initiated under our government to change the scenario. The results of our efforts will soon be visible.”