A partial recovery in July

We had expected employment to recover in July from its dramatic fall of 13 million in June. We expected the recovery to be situated essentially in rural India, which is where employment had shrunk drastically in June. We had described the extraordinary fall in employment in June as transitory in response to a delay in the progress of the southwest monsoon and correspondingly the delay in employing people for the seasonal kharif sowing activities.

Labour statistics for July show that a recovery did indeed take place in rural India. But, this has turned out to be grossly inadequate. Compared to