Employment News
Unemployment Rises to 5%! Why India’s Jobless Rate Hit a 3-Month High in January 2026
India’s unemployment rate increased to 5 per cent in January 2026, marking a three-month high, according to the latest Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) released by the National Statistics Office (NSO). The rise reflects seasonal weakness in rural labour markets and a post-harvest slowdown...The data is based on the Current Weekly Status (CWS) methodology.
The internship was never a pipeline; it was always a courtship
Internship programmes are proliferating even as their hiring yield declines. A survey by TeamLease EdTech of 932 Indian firms finds that nearly three-quarters intend to absorb only about a tenth of their interns as full-time employees. Opportunities have expanded by 25 per cent in the past year and by 135 per cent over five years. Conversions have not kept pace. The language of “talent pipelines” survives. The economics increasingly point elsewhere.
Women in the Workforce
UP sees sharp rise in women’s workforce participation
Uttar Pradesh has recorded a significant increase in female labour force participation, with the rate climbing from 14 per cent in 2017-18 to 36 per cent in 2023-24, according to recent government data. In a notable reform, the administration has permitted women to work across all 29 factory categories that were previously considered hazardous. The decision is subject to strict health and safety compliance, with employers required to create secure workplaces.
How Extreme Heat Affects India's Informal Women Workers
As heatwaves intensify, informal women workers are losing income, productivity, and protection—while policy response struggles to catch up. They are more vulnerable: They are concentrated in the most insecure segments of informal work, and continue to shoulder an inordinate burden of domestic and caregiving work. And each heatwave means choosing between health and income—and often losing both.
Caste in Employment
AI knows how caste works in India. Here is why that is a worry
When Usha Bansal and Pinki Ahirwar — two names that exist only in a research prompt — were presented to GPT-4 alongside a list of professions, the AI didn’t hesitate. “Scientist, dentist, and financial analyst” went to Bansal. “Manual scavenger, plumber, and construction worker” were assigned to Ahirwar. The systems had internalised social order, learning which names cluster near prestige and which get swept towards stigma.
Caste row resolved, kids back at anganwadi centre in odisha
KENDRAPARA: After a hiatus of nearly three months, children of Nuagaon village returned to the local anganwadi centre on Monday after the district administration resolved the dispute over appointment of a dalit cook in the facility. Kendrapara MP Baijayant Panda along with members of the Odisha State Commission for Protection of Child Rights visited Nuagaon village on Sunday and interacted with the locals. To show their solidarity with the dalit cook, the MP and others ate the food served by Sethi at the anganwadi centre.
Pre-election Sops
Over 6.5 Lakh Apply For ‘Yuva Saathi’ Scheme In 36 Hours; Political Row Intensifies In West Bengal
Kolkata: The launch of the West Bengal government’s ‘Yuva Saathi’ unemployment allowance scheme witnessed an overwhelming response on its opening day, with officials inundated by applications. In just 36 hours between Sunday and 12 noon on Monday over 6.55 lakh youths registered for the scheme. Although the minimum eligibility for the allowance is passing the secondary school examination, thousands of graduates and postgraduates were also seen standing in queues. In several places, elderly parents were spotted waiting in line to submit forms on behalf of their children.
Poll-bound Assam approves 3% quota for ‘tea tribes’ in Class I and II jobs
The Cabinet decision before the Budget presentation is significant, as the community accounts for almost 20% of the voters in the State; the construction of a second Sainik School at Langvoku in Karbi Anglong district has also been approved. The “tea tribes”, is a term used to mean Adivasis who were brought by the British planters from central India. The “tea tribes” votes are believed to have swung en masse from Congress to the Bharatiya Janata Party, which eyes a third straight term in Assam.
The Gig Economy
Urban India’s high five to domestic help apps
What began as a convenience experiment is now scaling rapidly across parts of Bengaluru, Mumbai and Delhi NCR, driven by repeat usage and aggressive supply build-out. Bengaluru-based Snabbit has gone from roughly 100,000 monthly jobs in Aug 2025 to a run rate of 10 lakh monthly jobs currently, founder and chief executive Aayush Agarwal told TOI, a tenfold increase in under six months. Urban Company's InstaHelp, launched last year, shows a similar trajectory.
1 per cent fee on gig platforms to fund social security in Karnataka
BENGALURU: The state government has issued a notification mandating collection of a 1% Gig Workers Welfare Fee on payouts made by aggregators under the Karnataka Platform Based Gig Workers (Social Security and Welfare) Act, 2025. Capped by vehicle and service category, platforms must remit quarterly payments, funding social security schemes for gig and platform workers statewide.
Exporting Workers
‘We paid for everything’ — 11 Jharkhand workers rescued from Dubai allege assault and unpaid wages
Eleven of the fourteen Jharkhand workers stranded in Dubai over alleged non-payment of wages returned to India Thursday following the state government’s intervention. An official from the state migrant workers control room, Shikha Lakra, told The Indian Express that the workers landed in Bengaluru from Abu Dhabi and later travelled to Kolkata before reaching their respective districts in Jharkhand by road. Three workers — one from Hazaribagh and two from Giridih — have stayed back in the UAE.
Endangered Workers
Rat-hole mining is banned and booming in Meghalaya. 22,000 mines run in plain sight
Banned rat-hole mining in East Jaintia Hills, where a blast killed 31, is a low-investment, high-profit model. A 10-year ban hasn't budged it—'They won't get such money anywhere else'. Four mine operators have been arrested so far, but the outrage over rat-hole mining in Meghalaya is already beginning to cool. Thousands of migrant workers from Assam, West Bengal, Nepal and Bangladesh keep coming to these hills, lured by relatively high daily wages. Workers typically earn Rs 800 to Rs 1,500 per ton of coal, which roughly amounts to a day’s work.
Bonded Labour
Wage manipulation and forced labour alleged at Jammu brick kiln sites
Allegations of bonded labour and human trafficking have surfaced from Jammu district, where three migrant labour families from Chhattisgarh are reported to have been confined and compelled to work at brick kilns for nearly a year. The National Campaign Committee for Eradication of Bonded Labour (NCCEBL) has claimed that the families, including women and children, were subjected to forced labour, wage manipulation and restrictions on movement, and that efforts are underway to secure their release.
Farm News
Bumper potato forecast ‘worry’: Government holds 30% cold storage space to avert distress sale in poll year
With unprecedented favourable weather, Bengal is expecting bumper potato production, something that is prompting the Mamata Banerjee govt to take all possible measures to balance the interests of farmers, consumers and cold storage owners during this high-voltage election season. Moving to avert distress sales by marginal farmers, the state government have already announced that every cold storage across Bengal has to reserve 30 per cent of its space for such famers, so that they can get a good price. The potato sector involves around 8,00,000 farming families spread across several Bengal districts. The potato network overall constitutes around 40 lakh electors.
Maharashtra forms task force to address climate change and prevent farmers’ suicides
Maharashtra has formed a special task force to address agricultural distress due to climate change and to prevent farmers’ suicides. A 10-member committee constituted by the Commissioner of Agriculture of Maharashtra, held its first meeting this week. The main aims of the task force are to study social, economic, psychological and agriculture-related factors which lead to farmers’ distress and suicides.
A community-managed goat bank supports farmers for livestock losses
A seed goat bank initiative has been started in Simni, a village in the Purulia district of West Bengal, wherein goats killed by a wild carnivore are replaced by another goat from the bank. A similar project was undertaken in 2017 in Sarada, a village in the Howrah district where goats were being killed by fishing cats. But it was discontinued after two years. The initiative in Purulia however, has voluntary goat-keepers and a village-level goat bank management committee that manages compensation claims after verification.
Advent of AI
AI Transforming Farming: Smart Tech for Farmers
AI is revolutionizing farming. From smart necklaces for cows in Kashmir detecting infections days before symptoms appear, to satellites predicting sugarcane sweetness with 95 per cent accuracy, artificial intelligence is already delivering measurable results for millions of smallholder farmers, Maharashtra Resident Commissioner R Vimala said Tuesday at the launch of a compendium of 26 ground-breaking studies. "AI is not for the privileged few. It's for every farmer in every corner of the Global South," she said at the AI Impact Summit here.
Earn the trust of farmers for AI diffusion across farms
Last week, Amul launched Sarlaben, an AI-powered digital assistant for dairy farmers in Gujarat. It will benefit over 3.6 million milk producers, most of them women, across more than 18,500 villages. Sarlaben answers queries on dairy farming, animal husbandry and milk procurement in real time, and is accessible through the Amul Farmer mobile app and via voice calls in Gujarati by those using basic feature phones.
VIDEO: Abhishek Singh on AI in Agriculture: How Technology is Helping The Indian Farmers
Abhishek Singh, Additional Secretary, MeitY speaks at the Mint Tech4Good Awards…
Tata AI Sakhi Immersion Programme empowers 1,553 rural women artisans, entrepreneurs
The Tata Group convened the Tata AI Sakhi Immersion Programme at the India AI Impact Summit 2026, reinforcing its commitment to inclusive and technology-led growth. The programme brought together 1,553 women participants from six states, that is, Jharkhand, Bihar, Odisha, Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Delhi NCR.
Skilling
Why are rural youth still struggling to access skill training?
The DDU-GKY scheme was designed to bridge skilling and formal jobs for rural youth. However, low awareness, distant placements, social factors, and curriculum gaps hinder uptake.
Labour Laws
How the New Labour Codes Hand the EU a Weapon Against Indian Workers
While the Centre celebrates the new trade pact as the ‘Mother of All Deals,’ a forensic scrutiny of domestic laws reveals a structural conflict with binding international commitments.