Statsguru: Six charts show India's employment conundrum amid Covid-19

Business Standard guides you through the numbers you need to know to make sense of the headlines

The government’s recently released Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) 2020-2021 annual report paints an optimistic picture of employment despite pandemic-related uncertainties.

The survey was conducted between July 2020 and June 2021, which included the worst of the second wave. Unemployment showed a declining trend despite Covid-19, according to the report. Overall unemployment was down from 6.1 per cent in 2017-18 to 4.2 per cent in 2020-21. The 2017-18 annual report was the first one for the PLFS. Female unemployment fell from 5.7 per cent to 3.5 per cent during the same period (chart 1).

The labour force participation rate, or