Scrambled statistics.

"Unemployment rate among graduates in the age group of 15 years and above has declined to 13.4% in 2022-23 from 14.9% a year ago, according to a government survey." "Joblessness or unemployment rate is defined as the percentage of employed persons in the labor force." "The reference period here is from July 2022 to June 2023." ET. "According to the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), the unemployment rate for individuals aged 15 years and above in urban areas decreased to 6.8% during January to March 2023 from 8.2% a year ago." But, "According to a recent Bloomberg report that references data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE),.. the unemployment rate in India is 7.95% as of July 2023." According to the Periodic Labor Force Survey (PLFS) , "It stands at 6.6% in April-June 2023, which was 7.6% earlier." Forbes. So, 6.8%, 7.95% or 6.6%, which is it? "The PLFS definition of weekly status is whether you were employed for at least one hour in the previous week. This is a standard ILO definition." According to the PLFS data India's LFPR (labor force participation rate) "increased from about 47% to 54%" and the female LFPR rate has increased from 20.7% in 2027-18 to 31.3%, wrote economist Surjit S Bhalla. LFPR also counts people who are looking for work and so does not count the true unemployment rate and working one hour per week is meaningless because it will not buy breakfast, let alone lunch and dinner. "Just 10% of the 15 lakh (1.5 million) engineers graduating this fiscal year will be able to find a job, a new report by Teamlease has shown, reflecting the impact of the global economic downturn." Actually, "PLFS presents a picture of employment distress." "Those who are self-employed have gone up sharply - by as much as 13 percentage points in the case of women." "India's consumer price index has risen 29.4% from 2017 to 23, while earnings of self-employed rose 8.3% over this period," "The earnings of casual wage workers declined 16% while those on regular wages saw their inflation-adjusted incomes fall by more than a quarter." Mint. Higher unemployment levels among educated workers is because "educated workers would be unwilling to settle for unskilled work" and "The government has increased the distribution - in both quantity and coverage - of cheap food under National Food Security Act. This reduces the pressure on an individual to take up work," wrote TCA Anand. So, the poor are lazy and happy with food and have no desire for the finer things of life. "More than 80% of India's non-agricultural workers work in enterprises which have fewer than 20 workers," but, in 2020-21, just 0.05% of 961 thousand companies "boasted at least Rs 500 crore (Rs 5 billion) profits before tax - had a share of 62% in profits before taxes and 48% in total income," wrote Roshan Kishore & Abhishek Jha. From long commuting time to unsanitary bathrooms and birth of children there are many hurdles for women to work, but, in a family, where the mother in law is working there is a greater chance of the daughter in law working as well. TOI. Mr Modi is already claiming victory in the 2024 general election HT. He has devotees who try to hoodwink us by scrambling statistics. The rest are irrelevant.