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What is India's unemployment rate?

5.0%
Sep 2026■ 0.0 vs Aug 2026

MoSPI · released 15 Oct 2026 · next due by 16 Nov 2026

What is India's unemployment rate?
PeriodValue (%)
Sep 20265.0
Aug 20265.0
Jul 20265.1
Jun 20265.5
May 20265.5
Apr 20265.2
Mar 20265.1
Feb 20264.9
Jan 20265.0
Dec 20254.8
Nov 20254.7
Oct 20255.2
Sep 20255.2
Aug 20255.1
Jul 20255.2
Jun 20255.6
May 20255.6
Apr 20255.1

Use in your answer

The unemployment rate in India was 5.0% in Sep 2026 (persons aged 15 and above, current weekly status), compared with 5.0% in Aug 2026. Source: MoSPI, Periodic Labour Force Survey, Monthly Bulletin.

Cite as: Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), Monthly Bulletin (NSO, MoSPI), Sep 2026

What this shows

  • Unemployment was 5.0% in September 2026 (persons 15+, current weekly status), down from 5.2% a year earlier.
  • Urban unemployment (6.9%) runs well above rural (4.2%); among urban women it was 9.2% in September 2026.
  • Since monthly estimates began in April 2025 the rate has stayed between 4.7% and 5.6%, peaking in the May–June lean season.

Cite this

Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), Monthly Bulletin (NSO, MoSPI), Sep 2026

Cite a fixed version from every published version below.

Source and method

Source
MoSPI, Periodic Labour Force Survey, Monthly Bulletin
Table
PLFS Monthly Bulletin, Statement 3, UR, persons 15 years and above, rural + urban, All India (CWS)
Released
15 Oct 2026
Retrieved
18 Oct 2026
Next due
by 16 Nov 2026
Processing
Copied as published.
Licence
GODL-India
What exactly is measured

Unemployment rate for persons aged 15 and above, rural and urban combined, in current weekly status (CWS), from the Periodic Labour Force Survey monthly bulletin. Monthly estimates began with the new survey design in April 2025; they are not comparable with older quarterly or annual PLFS figures.

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History: every published version

Each time the source changes this series we archive the full series as it stood, with an archived copy of the source, and never delete an old version. Each version has a permanent page you can cite. Recorded since 18 Oct 2026: 1 version.

No figure in this series has been revised since we began recording on 18 Oct 2026.

  1. 18 periods, latest Sep 2026: 5.0% · first snapshotArchived source4655c628a25c
Release notes (1)
  • 5.0%Sep 2026, monthly bulletin

Get the data

Use it in Excel, Python or R

Excel (Data → From Web): https://india.tf/c/soc-ur-012/data.csv

Python: pandas.read_csv("https://india.tf/c/soc-ur-012/data.csv")

R: read.csv("https://india.tf/c/soc-ur-012/data.csv")

All statistics: /api/index.json. Free to reuse with attribution (GODL-India).