Amid Kerala’s envious achievements in human development indicators and the latest row over the Union government’s alleged ‘financial embargo’ that stifles the economic growth rate of the State, Kerala continues to top the table of unemployment, according to the data on employment and unemployment collected through the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation since 2017-18.
Also, in terms of the Worker Population Ratio (WPR), which is the percentage of employed persons in the population, Kerala is still lagging behind most of the north and northeast States, despite the State being home to over 30 lakh migrant workers. According to the results of the survey conducted in the last three years for a period from July to June, Kerala is in 23rd position with 50.5% WPR in 2022-2023 among the 28 States in the country, followed by Bihar, Delhi, Goa, Haryana, Manipur, and Punjab. In simple words, WPR tells how many people in Kerala have a job as a proportion of the total population of the State.
