A handsome 8.5 million increase in employment was recorded in September, and everybody was hoping that October will further push the labour market up. By mid-October, the employment rate had even risen to 38.5 per cent from 37.9 per cent in September. However, after that, it suddenly crashed.It was baffling on account of several reasons: one, the growth in employment in September was in non-agriculture sectors, such as in construction and food products manufacturing, which do not disguise unemployment as the agricultural sector does.Another major reason for the hope was that the growth in September was also spread across the rural and urban areas. The hope of a sustained increase in employment was thus not unreasonable, but the unexpected crash has belied all hopes.In the subsequent two weeks of October, the rate of employment came down to 37.6 per cent and 37.1 per cent respectively. Thus the average employment rate for the whole month came down to 37.3 per cent, 0.6 per cent lower than 37.9 per cent in September.
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