Hero Image

Employment: Highest number of formal jobs created in August in this fiscal

Highest number of formal jobs so far in the current fiscal were created in the month of August under the Employees Provident Fund Organisation and the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation, signalling a pick up in demand for workers in the organised sector as economic activities gain momentum.

The payroll data of the ministry of statistics and programme implementation, released on Friday, shows the net new additions under EPFO stood at 10,05,852 while the number of newly registered employees under ESIC stood at 9,30,803 in August.



Even the new subscribers under the National Pension Scheme were higher in August at 37,447 compared to 34,862 in July. However, the highest contribution under the scheme in the current fiscal was in April at 64,647 followed by May at 43,888, largely on the back of last-minute investment to avail tax exemptions.

According to the data, the number of people who ceased to contribute to EPFO was lowest in August in the current fiscal at 2,45,859 while the number of people who exited and rejoined the scheme in the month under consideration stood at 5,81,797.

The net new enrolments with the EPFO hover around 7 lakh every month on an average. With the imposition of lockdown in the last week of May, the net enrolments in EPFO fell to 5.72 lakh in March 2020 from 10.21 lakh in February. During 2019-20, the number of net new subscribers rose to 78.58 lakh as compared to 61.12 lakh in the preceding fiscal.

While EPF is applicable to establishments having more than 20 workers, ESIC applies to firms and establishments with 10 or more employees.

“In view of the national lockdown consequent to the COVID-19 pandemic, several establishments were closed and which may have had implications on the reporting. The reported figures are thus likely to undergo significant revision in the next few months,” Mospi said in a statement.

Mospi has been bringing out the employment related statistics in the formal sector covering the period September 2017 onwards, using information on the number of subscribers who have subscribed under three major schemes, namely the Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) Scheme, the Employees’ State Insurance (ESI) Scheme and the National Pension Scheme (NPS).

READ ON APP