HYDERABAD: At a time when unemployment in the country is close to hitting a record high, Telangana has one of the highest unemployment rates, especially among the youth, as per the two recently-released reports by National Statistical Office (NSO) of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementations (MOSPI), namely, the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) annual report for the year 2017-18 and the PLFS Quarterly Bulletin.
While the PLFS annual report has data pertains to unemployment rate in urban as well as rural areas, the quarterly bulletin data only discusses that of urban areas. As per the quarterly bulletin, during the quarter of October-December 2018, unemployment rate according to Current Weekly Status (CWS) in urban areas of Telangana was 12.4 percent. This was the sixth highest among 22 states (excluding seven NE states and UTs each).
Telangana had the highest unemployment rate after Bihar (13.4), Jammu and Kashmir (13.5), Odisha (14.2), Uttarakhand (13.6) and Uttar Pradesh (15.8). A more worrying aspect of this data pertains to the unemployment rate among youth (persons aged 15-29 years) in the State, which stood at 32.8 percent in October-December 2018. This was fifth highest among the 22 states, after Bihar, J&K, Kerala and Odisha. The all-India figure in this age group was 23.7 percent.
The PLFS annual report for the year 2017-18, which pegged the unemployment rate in country at 6.1 percent, has stoked controversy with the number reportedly being the highest in country in the last 45 years.
According to this report, the unemployment rate in rural Telangana was 6.5 per cent and in urban Telangana it was 9.4 per cent. The overall unemployment rate in 2017-18 in the State was 7.6 per cent, which is the 14th highest among 36 states and UTs in the country. However, when the figure is compared within the 22 states, Telangana had the seventh highest unemployment rate after Delhi (9.7), Goa (13.9), Haryana (8.6), Jharkhand (7.7), Kerala (11.14) and Punjab (7.8).
6th highest unemployment rate among youth: PLFS
The Periodic Labour Force Survey annual report for the year 2017-18 ranks Telangana the sixth highest in country (22 states) in terms of unemployment rates among the youth. The State takes after Goa(28.7), Kerala(36.3), Odisha (23.6), Tamil Nadu (25.6) and Uttarakhand (27.5).