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Hyderabad has the highest unemployment rates among major south Indian metro cities, according to a Union government report released on June 30, 2026.
The report on Labour Market Dynamics in Million-plus Cities, released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), includes profiles of 46 cities with a population of over a million as per the 2011 Census, based on various labour market indicators from the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) 2025.
Hyderabad had an unemployment rate of 6.8%, way above Bengaluru (2.8%) and Chennai (4.4%). The report considered seven cities from south India – Coimbatore, Madurai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam, and Vijayawada.
Among all south Indian cities, Madurai had the highest unemployment rate of 11.6%, while Vijayawada performed similarly to Hyderabad at 6.9%.
Across India, Patna had the highest unemployment rate of 20.9%.
Unemployment in Delhi stood at 5.3%, Mumbai at 3.6% and Kolkata at 1.9%.
The average unemployment rate across the 46 million-plus cities was 4.9%.
When it came to the average number of hours people worked in a week, however, Hyderabad ranked higher than Bengaluru and Chennai at 49 hours. Vijayawada showed an average of 50.1 work hours in a week.
Although the average monthly earnings of salaried employees in Hyderabad (Rs 31,153) was higher than the average of the 46 million-plus cities (Rs 28,808), it was still lower than Bengaluru (Rs 34,323), Mumbai (Rs 36,267), and Delhi (Rs 34,807).
Across the 46 million-plus cities, the male labour force participation recorded was 75.9%, and for women it was 27.2%.
While 53.5% of men reported desire to continue their education as the main reason for not being in the labour force, 68.7% of women cited “child care/personal commitments in home-making” as the main reason.