A report based on research conducted by a privately run university shows that the unemployment rate in India has seen a steady rise, doubling in 2018 in comparison to what it was between 2000 and 2011. It also highlighted that there's been an increase in open unemployment among the higher educated and young population.

On Tuesday, Bengaluru-based Azim Premji University released its report titled 'The State of Working India (SWI),' that said, "The overall unemployment rate to be around 6% in 2018, double of what it was in the decade from 2000 to 2011. In addition to rising open unemployment among the higher educated, the less educated (and likely, informal) workers have also seen job losses and reduced work opportunities since 2016".

Between 2000 and 2011, the unemployment rate stayed in the 2-3 percent range.

Further, it said that five million men have lost jobs in between 2016 and 2018, with the beginning of decline coinciding with demonetisation in November 2016. The report added that no direct causal relationship can be established based only on these trends.

This report on India's labour market was based on the Consumer Pyramids Survey of the Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy (CMIE-CPDX) due to the absence of official numbers from the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS).

CMIE is a Mumbai-based business information company which has an independent think tank. The survey is an ongoing nationally representative panel survey of around 1.6 lakh households and 5.22 lakh individuals that is conducted every four months.