India has a jobs bloodbath as unemployment rate shoots up to 27.1%

When jobs evaporate in other sectors, people go back to farms which seem to have an infinite capacity to absorb labour; but that is mostly disguised unemployment

The unemployment rate shot up to 27.1 per cent in the week ended May 3. This is the highest unemployment rate so far. It seems to have risen because of a surge in the labour participation rate from 35.4 per cent in the week of April 21 to 36.2 per cent in the week ended May 3. The spike in the unemployment rate indicates that this surge in job see­kers was highly disappointed. They could not find jobs. Their addition to the labour force merely raised the unemployment rate.

Evidently, the hope and the desperation described last week (“Hope in a