Real crisis

NSSO jobs data negates demographic dividend

Just a day after two senior members of the National Statistical Commission (NSC) resigned, alleging that the government had withheld the release of a survey on the status of unemployment in the country, a report in Business Standard said that according to the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), conducted by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), the unemployment rate stood at a 45-year high of 6.1 per cent in 2017-18. The joblessness rate among the youth was at a significantly high level compared to the previous years and, as the report stated, “much higher compared to that in the overall