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An Executive Director at the International Monetary Fund, Krishnamurthy V Subramanian explained why the current unemployment rate is at a five-year low. “If you go by the reliable Periodic Labour Force Survey data put out by the NSSO, it is absolutely clear that both in quantity and in quality, the employment situation had improved before the pandemic and has also improved since then. It is a fact that during the lockdown and during the second wave, the employment situation did worsen and this is something that is very clearly shown in the PLFS data which further enhances the trustworthiness of the PLFS data. If you look at the salaried employees and regular wage workers that is increased from 13 crores in 2019-20 to 14.3 crores as of 2022-23. Similarly, if you look at the formal sector employment it has increased from 5.9 crores in 2019-20 to 6.3 crores in 2022-23. This is clearly illustrative of the quality of employment increasing. If you look at the quantity of employment and these are measured using the unemployment ratio, the labour force participation rate and the worker population ratio, it's very clear, that the quantity of employment has also improved significantly with the unemployment rate being a five-year low at 3.2 per cent. So, both in quantity and in quality employment improved significantly pre-COVID and has also recovered after the second wave when there was deterioration. That is why the unemployment rate is at a five-year low,” said Krishnamurthy V Subramanian.