The latest labour bureau survey data is bound to leave policy makers worried as the unemployment rate is estimated at 5 percent.

The 5 percent figure is at the all India level under the Usual Principal Status (UPS) approach or in other words 5 percent of the persons aged 15 years and above who were available for work could not get work during the reference period, said the Fifth Annual Employment – Unemployment Survey (2015-16) of the labour bureau, ministry of labour and employment.

In rural sector, unemployment rate was 5.1 percent whereas in urban sector, the unemployment rate was 4.9 percent under the UPS approach.

In a worrying development, the report said that the unemployment rate was significantly higher among females as compared to males. “At the all India level, the female unemployment rate was estimated to be 8.7 percent, whereas for males it was 4 percent (under the UPS approach).”

In urban areas, the female unemployment rate was estimated to be 12.1 percent at the all India level under the UPS approach as compared to 3.3 percent for males and 10.3 percent for transgenders.

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The latest survey results show that at the all India level, about 40.4 percent of the households belong to Other Backward Classes category followed by 29.9 percent under the others category, 20.3 percent under the Scheduled Castes category and the rest 9.4 percent households belong to the Scheduled Tribes category.

“The results show that about 24 percent households benefitted from employment generating schemes like MGNREGA, PMEGP, SGSY and SJSRY etc. Only three north eastern States, namely Tripura, Manipur and Mizoram have more than 70 percent of the households which have benefited from MGNREGA.”

In case of number of employed persons in the households, it is found that 48.4 percent of the households had only 1 employed person followed by 30.6 percent households with 2 employed persons. Households with 3 employed persons constituted 10.7 percent and households with 4 and above persons constituted only 5.2 percent. Remaining 5.1 percent of the households did not have even a single employed person/earner.

At the all India level, about 77 percent of the households were reported to be having no regular wage/salaried person, the report said.

In the present survey, an attempt has also been made to capture the information related to households having saving bank account and average monthly households earnings for each State/UT.

It is estimated that at the all India level a little more than 67 percent of the surveyed households had average Monthly Earnings not exceeding Rs 10,000 only. In rural sector such households constituted about 77 percent whereas the corresponding proportion was about 45 percent among urban households.

“It is also estimated that at the all India level, 94.4 percent of the households had saving bank accounts for both rural and urban sector. In Daman & Diu and Lakshadweep, all of the households surveyed had saving bank accounts. Chandigarh had 99 percent of the households with saving bank accounts.”

Nagaland had minimum i.e. 79.2 percent households having saving bank accounts and out of these the highest proportion (30.2 percent) of the households had average monthly household earnings of Rs. 20,001 to Rs. 50,000.

Read the full report on Fifth Annual Employment – Unemployment Survey (2015-16)