Which of the following statements is true regarding the trend of unemployment rate in India between July-September, 2019 and July-September, 2022 ?
1. It remained the same.
2. It declined.
Select the

Question

Which of the following statements is true regarding the trend of unemployment rate in India between July-September, 2019 and July-September, 2022 ?
1. It remained the same.
2. It declined.
Select the correct answer from the codes given below :

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — A, statement 2 is true and statement 1 is false: the unemployment rate declined. The two quarters named in the question are the standard comparison pair in the National Statistical Office's Periodic Labour Force Survey quarterly bulletins, which report the unemployment rate for urban areas on the Current Weekly Status for persons aged 15 years and above. In the July–September 2019 quarter that rate stood at about 8.3 to 8.4 per cent; by the July–September 2022 quarter it had come down to 7.2 per cent. The path in between is not a straight line and is worth remembering, because it is where examiners set their traps: the rate spiked through the COVID quarters — it was around 13.3 per cent in July–September 2020 — and was still elevated at 9.8 per cent in July–September 2021 before falling to 7.2 per cent in 2022. So the three-year comparison the question asks for shows a decline, and a decline that takes the rate below its own pre-pandemic level, not merely back to it. Statement 1 fails on the same evidence: a movement from roughly 8.3 per cent to 7.2 per cent is not 'remained the same'. Note finally that statements 1 and 2 are mutually exclusive, so option (d) was logically unavailable from the start and the real choice lay between (a), (b) and (c).

Why the other options are wrong — (b) This would require the rate to have risen over the period — the only remaining possibility once 'same' and 'declined' are both rejected. It did not. The comparable PLFS quarterly figure fell from about 8.3 per cent in July–September 2019 to 7.2 per cent in July–September 2022. Candidates pick this option by anchoring on the pandemic surge of 2020 and assuming the labour market had not recovered by 2022; the data show it had.  (c) The exact inversion of the evidence. A fall of more than one percentage point across the two comparable quarters is a decline, not stability. Unemployment rates in India also move too much from quarter to quarter — 13.3 per cent in July–September 2020, 9.8 per cent in July–September 2021 — for 'remained the same' ever to be a safe description of a three-year window.  (d) Logically impossible before any data are consulted. A rate cannot simultaneously have remained the same and declined. Whenever two statements in a UPPSC item are direct contradictories, an option accepting both can be struck out at sight — a free elimination that leaves only three choices to weigh.

Concept: India's employment data come from the Periodic Labour Force Survey, launched by the National Statistical Office in 2017-18 to replace the old quinquennial NSSO employment-unemployment rounds. PLFS publishes annual reports and, separately, quarterly bulletins; the quarterly series is an urban series, built on the Current Weekly Status. The unemployment rate itself is the share of the labour force — not of the total population — that is seeking or available for work but not employed, so it moves with participation as well as with job creation.

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