Unemployment rate in urban India at 10.3% in Q3 of 2020-21: NSO

Unemployment rate in urban India in the third quarter of 2020-21 cooled down further to 10.3% compared to 13.2% in the preceding quarter and an all-time high of 20.9% during the April-June quarter when a nationwide lockdown was imposed to contain the spread of the pandemic.

The unemployment rate, however, was higher compared to the corresponding October-December quarter of 2019-20 at 7.8%, shows the quarterly data from a periodic labour force survey by the National Statistical Office (NSO). Joblessness or unemployment rate (UR) is defined as the percentage of unemployed persons in the labour force.

As per the survey, labour force participation rate for all ages was a tad higher in the third quarter at 47.3% in October-December quarter compared to 47.2% in the September quarter of 2020. It had stood at 47.8% the corresponding quarter of 2019-20.


Labour force according to CWS is the number of persons either employed or unemployed on an average in a week preceding the date of survey. LFPR is defined as the percentage of population in the labour force.

As per the report released on Thursday, the worker population ratio (WPR) during the third quarter of the last fiscal stood at 42.4%, higher than 40.9% in the preceding quarter but lower than 44.1% in the preceding quarter of 2019-20.

At the all-India level, in the urban areas, a total number of 5,563 FSUs (UFS blocks) have been surveyed during the quarter October – December 2020. The number of urban households surveyed was 43,693 and the number of persons surveyed was 1,71,553 in urban areas, Mospi said.

NSO launched PLFS in April 2017. The estimates of unemployed persons in current weekly status (CWS) give an average picture of unemployment in a short period of 7 days during the survey period.

In the CWS approach, a person is considered unemployed if he or she did not work even for one hour on any day during the week but sought or was available for work at least for 1 hour on any day during the period.