India, Sept. 16 -- India's headline unemployment rate came in at 5% in August, marginally lower than the 5.1% figure in August last year, but increased by half a percentage point for the younger 15-29 years age group to 15.1%. This makes August at least the fourth consecutive month when headline unemployment rate has declined compared to previous year and at least the fifth consecutive month when youth unemployment rate has increased compared to previous year.

These numbers are from the monthly bulletin of the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) published by the National Statistics Office (NSO) on Tuesday. Since monthly bulletins are available are only from April 2025, year-on-year trends can only be tracked from April 2026. Youth unempl...