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Incredible though it may sound, only 2 out of every 100 person in the country is unemployed as against 10 out of 100 in the United States, according to a recent survey by a central government agency.
Terming this as a 'proportionate' unemployment rate, a senior officer of the National Sample Survey Organisation on Monday said this implied that "nobody in the country can afford to stay unemployed, although one may not be earning enough."
In India, a person can still be called 'employed' even if he or she lives below the poverty line since the money earned by him or her may not be sufficient for requirements, B K Giri, director of NSSO's Kolkata-based survey design and research department, said.
But in the context of the USA, this was not the case. A person cannot be called employed if he or she does not earn the money required for the daily needs, he said.
Giri, who was in Shillong in connection with a training programme of field staff for the NSSO' 60th round of survey work on 'employment unemployment', 'household consumer expenditure' and 'morbidity and healthcare' scenario in the country, said the rate was not changing for the last 3-4 years.
Although the proportionate rate was put at 2 per cent, if the unemployment rate was calculated only among the total work force of the country, it was slightly higher at around 3 per cent, he said.