THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Unemployment rate in Kerala declined from 11.4 per cent in 2017-18 to 9 per cent in 2018-19, according to the Economic Review 2020 tabled in the assembly on Thursday. Still, the state has a high rate of joblessness when compared to the national average of 5.8 per cent.
Quoting the Periodic Labour Force Survey report, the ER said the unemployment rate (UR) among women was quite high (17.1 per cent) than men (5 per cent). The unemployment rate was 4.7 per cent among men and 15.6 per cent among women in rural areas, while it was 5.2 per cent among men and 18.8 per cent among women in urban areas.
The number of professional and technical job seekers registered with the employment exchanges as on July 31, 2020 was 3.5 lakh. There were 47,525 registered engineering graduates and 9,000 medical graduates. Diploma holders, ITI certificate holders and engineering graduates together constitute 71 per cent of the total professional and technical job seekers.
Youth who account for around 23 per cent of the state’s population are severely affected. “The UR among the youth in Kerala is much higher as compared to that of the overall population. This reveals the severity of the unemployment problem among them in Kerala. The UR of the youth is 35.8 per cent for rural areas and 34.6 per cent for urban areas.
Similarly, the UR among the female youth is also higher than that of the male youth,” says ER 2020. The lockdown resulted in an unprecedented loss of employment in all sectors. As per the “Assessment of the Impact of The Covid-19 Pandemic and Lockdown on Kerala’s Economy, April to June 2020” conducted by State Planning Board, the loss of person days of employment for 98 days (March 25 to June 30, 2020) for the workers, both registered and non-registered, was estimated to be 721.2 million days. The impact of the lockdown was most severe in the case of self-employed and casual workers in all sectors of the economy.
Most employed in Ernakulam, least in Wayanad
The highest number of employed people are in Ernakulam and lowest in Wayanad. The total organised sector employment in Ernakulam is 2.6 lakh persons — 21.1 per cent of the total employment in the state. In Wayanad, the employment under the organised sector is 0.4 lakh persons 2.8 per cent of the total employment in the state.
More men in public sector employment
Men outnumber women in the public sector employment whereas in the private sector employment, women and men are almost in equal number. In 2019-20, the share of men is 65.2 per cent of public sector employment, while that of women is 34.8 per cent.
More women in employment exchange list
Contrary to the all-India scenario, woman job seekers are found to be more in the live registers of employment exchanges. Of the total job seekers in 2020 (up to July 31, 2020), 63.6 per cent were women. The number of illiterate persons in the register was 880.