Andhra Pradesh unemployment rate at 7.8%, Telangana at 6.4% in July-September, both above India’s 5.1%

Andhra Pradesh recorded an unemployment rate of 7.8% in July-September 2026 and Telangana 6.4%, both above the national figure of 5.1%, the quarterly bulletin of the Periodic Labour Force Survey shows. The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation released it on Tuesday, 10 November. Of the 22 states and Union Territories for which the bulletin gives figures, only Jammu and Kashmir (9.4%) and Kerala (8.7%) had a higher rate than Andhra Pradesh; Punjab matched it at 7.8%.

For the country, the rate among people aged 15 and above eased from 5.4% in April-June. In rural areas it came down from 4.8% to 4.3%; in towns it was 6.8%, against 6.7% three months earlier. On average 57.9 crore people were at work during the quarter, 40.5 crore of them men and 17.4 crore women, the ministry said.

Andhra Pradesh: 21.4% among the young

Andhra Pradesh’s 7.8% compares with 7.4% in April-June and 8.2% in July-September 2025, so the rate is lower than a year earlier but higher than in the previous quarter. It was 7.8% in villages and 8.0% in towns, 6.8% for men and 9.6% for women. In the 15-29 age group it stood at 21.4%, against 15.3% for India.

Telangana: towns push the rate up

Telangana’s rate rose from 5.7%, its level both in the previous quarter and a year earlier. Villages reported 4.1%. Towns reported 9.6%, up from 7.3% in April-June, and urban women 18.5%. The bulletin puts the relative standard error of that last estimate, a measure of sampling error, at 27.67%, against 1.72% for the national rate. Unemployment in the state’s 15-29 age group climbed to 21.7% from 19.3%.

Both states still have a larger share of people aged 15 and above working or seeking work than the country as a whole: 60.3% in Telangana and 57.6% in Andhra Pradesh, against 55.5% nationally. For women the figures are 43.6%, 40.0% and 34.7%. Farming accounts for 40.1% of workers in Telangana and 37.6% in Andhra Pradesh.

The survey counts as unemployed anyone who did not work for even an hour on any of the seven days before the interview, yet was looking for work or ready to take it. It covered 5,346 households in Andhra Pradesh and 4,386 in Telangana, and the bulletin asks that its estimates be read along with their margins of error. The quarterly bulletin gives state-wise estimates; the ministry’s monthly bulletins carry all-India figures.