Labour statistics disappoint in October: Unemployment rate rises to 6.9%

Month records worst unemployment rate in two years

The small improvement in labour statistics seen in September turned out to be short-lived. October statistics point to a continuation of the deterioration in labour markets seen earlier.

The unemployment rate rose to 6.9 per cent in October — the worst recorded in two years. The unemployment rate has been rising almost steadily since July 2017. And, this is not the only bad news from the labour markets.

Unemployment rate is not the best measure of labour market conditions in India. A better set of measures is the labour participation rate and the employment rate.

The former is a measure