Unemployment rate among 15-29 age group sees marginal rise in July, sparks concerns

The labour market exhibited varied trends across gender, age, and geographical areas, with rural unemployment increasing.

Updated on: Aug 18, 2026, 08:01:38 IST

By Abhishek Jha

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India’s headline unemployment rate came in at 5.1% in July, marginally lower than the 5.2% figure in July last year, although unemployment of people in the 15-29 years age group increased by 0.70 percentage points, a number that is bound to cause concern, especially in the wake of Gen Z protests across India last month. The fact that unemployment in the segment increased despite no change in their labour force participation rate is even more concerning.

unemployment rate came in at 5.1% in July, marginally lower than the 5.2% figure in July last year (Representational image/Unsplash)

The numbers are from Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) data released by the National Statistics Office (NSO) on Monday. The headline number is in keeping with the marginal decline seen in unemployment rate in May and June.

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To be sure, the trend in unemployment was opposite for men and women; rural and urban areas; and the young and old. Unemployment rate increased by 10 basis points – one basis point is one hundredth of a percentage point -- compared to last year in rural areas to 4.5%. In urban areas, the rate decreased by 50 basis points to 6.7%.

Similarly, a gender-wise disaggregation shows that female unemployment increased 30 basis points to 5.4% while male unemployment decreased by 30 basis points to 5%. Youth unemployment – the monthly bulletins give disaggregated data only for the 15-29 age group – also increased by 70 basis points to 15.6%. To be sure, sequentially, unemployment rate fell for even the young and women. However, labour market indicators are usually compared for the same month across years to account for seasonality of jobs, such as those in agriculture.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Abhishek Jha
Abhishek Jha is Assistant Editor-Data at Hindustan Times. He uses statistical programming to generate newsworthy insights from large datasets. He is part of the team that produces Number Theory, a daily data story feature of the paper’s print edition. Since March 2024, he has been writing Weather Bee, a weekly column for the Hindustan Times website. He is a chemical engineer by training, who specialises in stories related to weather, climate, and the environment. Jha has been at HT since 2018, where he offers data-driven perspective and analysis on politics, environment, weather, climate, economy and society. His work includes data coverage of elections in India and abroad, including the 2019 and 2024 Lok Sabha elections; the disasters and extreme weather resulting from changing climate, such as floods, droughts, heat waves, cold waves, and dwindling snow cap in the Himalayas; the factors that drive poor air quality in northern India; the changing patterns of land use; the Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on labour market conditions; the changing pattern of consumer spending seen in the new consumer spending surveys; and social norms seen in the surveys such as the National Family Health Survey.Read More

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