Bengal's unemployment rate in Dec dips, national average jumps: Data
Kolkata: The unemployment rate in Bengal has dropped in December 2020 compared to that of the corresponding month in 2019 despite the state fighting against two adverse situations that surfaced due to super cyclone Amphan and the Covid pandemic.
This comes when the country's average unemployment rate in December 2020 has gone up, compared to what it was at the end of 2019.
The country's average unemployment rate was 7.6 per cent in December 2019 while the same stood at 9.1 per cent in December 2020, which is again highest in the past
six months.
While Bengal's unemployment rate is much less as it stands at only 6 per cent in December 2020, shows the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) data.
The state has become successful in reducing the unemployment rate in the past one year despite facing Covid and fighting the aftermath of Amphan simultaneously.
This comes as the unemployment rate a year ago in December 2019 was 6.2 percent. Though it had climbed up to 17.4 per cent in the months of May and April in 2020 due to the lockdown situation.
The robust economic policy of the state government has helped to gradually bring it down to 6 per cent in December.
Unlike Bengal there are many states including Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chattisgarh, Assam and Andhra Pradesh that witnessed a higher unemployment rate in December 2020 compared to that of its corresponding month in 2019.
The unemployment rate of Uttar Pradesh was 9.4 per cent in December 2019 and it was 14.9 per cent in the last month of 2020.
The CMIE report further shows that the same for Assam in December 2019 was 0.9 percent, but it was 7.6 per cent in December 2020.
The unemployment rate in Rajasthan has gone up to 28.2 per cent in December 2020 which was only 15 per cent in its previous year.
According to experts, the steps of the Mamata Banerjee government in ensuring creation of jobs under MGNREGA and recent massive recruitment drive when the economy had nosedived due to the nationwide lockdown has helped the state in maintaining a better position in terms of employment rate compared to that of many other states and also if compared with the national average.
More than 30 crore mandays under MGNREGA have been created in the state.
The state will witness further generation of job opportunities in the next few years.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had said a few days ago that "Projects like coal mining at Deochapachami, deep sea port at Tajpur and IT industries by several companies including Wipro and Infosys are coming up in the state. So the youths here no more have to travel abroad in search of jobs. There will be no more dearth of job opportunities in Bengal with the initiatives taken by the state government".
