Around 14 per cent of India’s youth is unemployed: Decoding the jobs data

When the Union Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation released its first-ever monthly jobs data under the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), it revealed that in Indians under the age of 30 (15-29 years), a staggering 13.8 per cent were jobless in April 2025.

According to the PLFS, unemployment in urban areas was at 17.2 per cent and at 12.3 per cent in rural regions.

This is the first time that India has begun to measure the rate of unemployment in the country on a monthly basis. In April 2025, the total rate of unemployment stood at 5.1 per cent.

The Centre hoped that the PLFS would help monitor the unemployed people and match them to eligible jobs in real-time. Earlier, the jobs data was released quarterly and annually.

Overall, joblessness was 5.2 per cent in men and 5 per cent in women.

Among the youth (ages 15-29), 14.4 per cent of women were unemployed. This was 23.7 per cent in urban areas and 10.7 per cent in villages. According to the PLFS, the Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR) among people (age 15 and above) stood at 55.6 per cent during April 2025.

Worker Population Ratio (WPR), which measures the total proportion of people employed among the entire population, was at 55.4 per cent for the month—for those in ages 15 and above.

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