Lockdown 2.0: Unemployment rate touches 26% amid Covid-19 outbreak

The labour participation rate has similarly fallen further from 35.5 per cent to 35.4 per cent and, the employment rate has now fallen to 26.1 per cent compared to 27 per cent in the earlier week

In the third week of April that ended on the 19th, labour market conditions worsened. This was the fourth week of the lockdown.

During the last week of March and in the first two weeks of April, the unemployment rate hovered around 23-24 per cent. In the first week, it was 23.8 per cent; in the second week it dropped a bit to 23.4 per cent but in the third week it bounced back to 24 per cent. The variations were minor and collectively they confirmed that the unemployment rate had indeed risen to around 24 per cent following the lockdown.