Goa tops unemployment list in India

The first-ever annual employment survey by the Labour Bureau under the Union Ministry of Labour points to a "jobless economic growth" last fiscal year. During the bureau's survey period 2009-10 — also the year in which India's gross domestic product grew by 7.4 per cent — unemployment was 9.4 per cent.

The National Sample Survey Organisation, using its Consumer Expenditure Survey for 2007-08, had painted a rosy unemployment figure of 2.8 per cent. The Labour Bureau's survey covered 300 districts in 28 states and Union territories that represent 99 per cent of the country's population.

The bureau's "Report on Employment & Unemployment Survey 2009-10" also breaks the myth that 70 per cent of the rural economy is dependent on agriculture. According to the survey, only 57.6 per cent in rural and 9.9 per cent in urban areas depend on agriculture, forestry and fishing.