New Delhi, April 16 -- India's headline unemployment rate was 5.1% in March, according to the monthly bulletin of the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) released by the National Statistics Office (NSO) on Wednesday. Rural unemployment was 4.3%, and urban unemployment was 6.8%. To be sure, monthly PLFS bulletins are only available from April 2025. Therefore, it is not possible to say whether the March numbers reflect an improvement or deterioration. This is because some jobs, such as those in the agricultural sector, are seasonal in nature. Year-on-year trends will be known only from next month, when April 2026 numbers are published. Sequentially, the overall unemployment rate was up 20 basis points compared to February. One basis point is ...