New Delhi: India's unemployment rate for people aged 15 years and above remained unchanged at 5.5% in June compared with May, as a rise in urban joblessness was offset by a marginal easing in rural unemployment.
Urban unemployment rose to 6.6% in June from 6.4% in May, with unemployment rising among both men and women, according to the latest Periodic Labour Force Survey-Monthly Bulletin (PLFS-M) released by the statistics ministry on Wednesday.
Rural unemployment, meanwhile, eased to 5.0% from 5.1% in May. Rural male unemployment fell to 4.9% from 5.2%, while rural female unemployment increased to 5.0% from 4.7%.
Unemployment edges
Compared with June 2025, rural unemployment edged up from 4.9% to 5.0%, while urban unemployment declined from 7.1% to 6.6%, the ministry of statistics and programme implementation (MoSPI) said.
The overall labour force participation rate (LFPR) for people aged 15 years and above remained unchanged at 54.4% in June, slightly higher than 54.2% a year earlier.
Urban LFPR rose to 50.1% from 49.8% in May, while rural LFPR remained steady at 56.6%.
Female LFPR stood at 32.7% in June, marginally lower than 32.8% in May but 0.7 percentage points higher than the 32.0% recorded in June 2025.
The worker population ratio (WPR) for people aged 15 years and above remained unchanged at 51.4% in June. Rural WPR held steady at 53.8%, while urban WPR improved marginally to 46.8% from 46.6% in May.
The PLFS, conducted by the National Statistical Office under MoSPI, is India's primary survey tracking employment and unemployment. Since January 2025, its methodology has been revised to provide monthly and quarterly estimates of key labour market indicators—including the labour force participation rate, worker population ratio and unemployment rate—using the current weekly status approach.
The June estimates are based on responses from 372,852 individuals, including 212,390 in rural areas and 160,462 in urban areas.
