India's unemployment rate jumped to a 15-week high of 8.58 percent for the week ended April 11 on the back of a sudden rise in unemployment in salaried personnel. The urban unemployment rate rose 260 basis points to 9.81 percent over the week, Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy (CMIE) data stated.

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India continues to see a very large shortfall in jobs with salaried jobs down nearly 10 million, Mahesh Vyas, MD and CEO at CMIE, said on Monday.

"The salaried jobs are down nearly 10 million and the increase is mostly in farming jobs,” he said in an interview with CNBC-TV18.

Rural unemployment, however, eased to 8 percent for the week ended April 11 from 8.58 percent in the previous week, the data showed.

According to the comprehensive numbers till October 2020, the household incomes were 12 percent lower than a year ago.

After the government imposed a lockdown towards the end of March last year as the pandemic hit, the country’s unemployment rate peaked to 27 percent in the May 3 week last year.

It then fell to 4.66 percent in January this year but rose again to 8.16 percent in the April 4 week following the rapid spike in the new Covid-19 cases.