New Delhi, May 11 (IANS). According to a statement issued by the Statistics Ministry on Monday, a decline in urban unemployment has been recorded during the January-March quarter of this year. At the same time, employment in the secondary and tertiary (service) sectors has increased in rural areas.
The overall unemployment rate (UR) in urban areas for people aged 15 years and above declined to 6.6 per cent during the January-March 2026 quarter from 6.7 per cent in the previous quarter.
The share of employees receiving regular wages and salaries in rural areas increased to 15.5 percent, which was 14.8 percent in the previous quarter.
According to the ministry, there has been a slight increase in the share of regular salaried employees in rural areas. Besides, employment has also increased in secondary and tertiary sectors.
The statement said that the employment structure remains the same as before. In rural areas, most people are still working in agriculture and related primary sectors, while in urban areas most of the employment is concentrated in the service sector.
The share of people working in agriculture in rural areas was 55.8 percent in January-March 2026, which was 58.5 percent in the previous quarter.
At the same time, the employment share in the rural services sector increased from 20.6 percent in October-December 2025 to 21.7 percent in January-March 2026.
Apart from this, the employment share in secondary sector, mining and quarrying in rural areas has also increased, which increased from 20.9 percent in the previous quarter to 22.6 percent.
However, the distribution of employment across different sectors in urban areas remained almost stable.
During the January-March quarter, an average of 57.4 crore people were employed in the country. These included 40.2 crore men and 17.2 crore women. According to the Ministry of Statistics, these figures have been prepared on the basis of a survey of 5,61,822 people at the all India level.
–IANS
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