CHENNAI: Around 12 million people were employed in January, the highest monthly addition since the lock-down. This saw the unemployment rate easing to 6.5 per cent during the month.
The number of employed people came down to 400.7 million last month compared to 388.8 million in December. The surge in employment in January also compensated for the loss in the past three months, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy.
“Month-over-month variations in employment rarely crossed the 5 million mark before the lockdown. The increase in January was twice this max variation,” said Mahesh Vyas, CEO of CMIE.
This helped the unemployment rate ease from 9.1 per cent in December to to 6.5 per cent in January. The unemployment rate was volatile in the past six months, ranging from a low of 6.5 per cent in November to a high of 9.1 per cent in December. The average unemployment rate during August- January was 7.4 per cent. “The two most recent months December and…