The strong growth in jobs in September is an indication that employment in India could cross the pre-COVID levels this month, the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) said on October 21.

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"The spurt in the labour participation rate and the employment rate give additional reasons to expect October to see a consolidation of the employment gains seen in September, or even a small expansion. The prospects of breaching the 2019-20 level are bright," the CMIE said.

Labour force participation rate is the working population in the economy (within the age group of 16-64) currently employed or seeking employment.

The CMIE expects this rate to rise during the festive season and also in the upcoming harvest season.

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In September, India added 8.5 million jobs, led by the salaried jobs category. Unemployment rate declined to 6.9 percent in the month from 8.3 percent in August, according to CMIE data.

Labour participation rate in September stood at 40.7 percent, up from 40.5 percent in the previous month.

The total number of employed people in India stood at 406.2 million in September against 408.9 million employed in 2019-20.

As per the weekly data by CMIE, labour participation rate was 41.6 percent in the week ended October 17. This is higher than 40.4 percent for the week to October 10 and 39.2 percent in the week ended October 3.

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The unemployment rate declined week-on-week in October to 7.3 percent for the week ended October 17 compared with 8.9 percent in the week to October 10 and 7.6 percent in the previous week.

“The week ended October 17 was remarkable as it saw an increase in the labour participation rate and a simultaneous fall in the unemployment rate,” CMIE said, adding that this propped up employment rate to 38.5 percent in the week ended October 17 from 36.8 percent in the week ended October 10.

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(Edited by : Shoma Bhattacharjee)