True: India’s unemployment rate in 2020 was the highest since 1991.

By: Khagesh KG
July 17 2021

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In 2020, the year of the COVID-19 outbreak, India's unemployment rate rose to 7.11 percent, the highest since 1991. According to the Centre for Economic Data and Analysis report, the economics department of Ashoka University, India’s unemployment rate in 2020 was the highest since 1991. The report dated May 27, 2021, is based on International Labour Organization’s (ILO) ILOSTAT database. According to the analysis, in 2020, the country’s unemployment rate increased sharply to 7.11 percent against 5.27 percent in 2019. The report says that between 2008 and 2010, the unemployment rate rose from 5.36 percent to 5.65 percent. Between 2013 and 2019, it fell from 5.67 percent to 5.27 percent and then rose sharply in 2020, the year when the country first started battling through the economic effects of lockdown imposed due to COVID-19. It further says that in 2020, India had the most unemployed people among its immediate neighbors, and it has been so since 2010. However, the unemployment rate in the United States was higher than that in India in 2020. According to CEDA, the rising unemployment may be contributed by unorganized labor and the organized and salaried segment. Thus, it is true that India’s unemployment rate in 2020 was the highest since 1991.