Labour force in India saw a substantial bounce-back in comparison to last month as 88 lakh people joined the labour market in the month of April taking the total count to 4.37 crore, data from CMIE (Centre for Monitoring of Indian Economy) showed. The increase is because working age people who were out of the labour force re-joined the labour force last month led by acceleration in manufacturing and services jobs, it added.
“People who could have been in the labour force but had chosen to sit out were now flooding the labour markets. This is the opposite effect of the phenomenon where disappointed people move out of the labour force. Implicitly, April saw some of these disappointed people, or quitters, coming back into the labour markets,” CMIE said in a report this week.
Rise in employment in April after a three-month decline
The latest readings show a four-month high in the monthly increases in the labour force. “This is one of the largest monthly increases in the labour force if we exclude the lockdown impacted months when the movement in and out of the labour markets was extraordinarily high.”
Along with the rise in the labour force, employment also rose in April, which comes after three consecutive months of decline from January to March. “It may be useful to note that the 8.8 million increase in the labour force in April comes after a 12 million fall in the same during the preceding three months. Labour moved out of the labour markets during January-March and has come back in April,” CMIE said.
Jobs decline in agriculture; offset by increase in manufacturing, services
In comparison to March, when the agriculture sector attracted the most number of jobs, in the last month the industry and services sector witnessed an increase in employment. The agricultural sector shed 52 lakh jobs due to winding down of rabi harvesting season, and intense heat wave.
Industry added 55 lakh jobs while services added 67 lakh jobs in the month of April. Jobs rose in manufacturing (of metals, chemicals and cemen) and construction while it declined in mining and utilities. Within the services sector, the increases were in the retail trade, hotels and restaurants industries.
