July witnessed surge in hiring across establishments and industries: Mospi

Formal job creation gathered momentum ahead of the festive season with July witnessing a surge in hiring across establishments and industries to meet the rising demand for workforce. Payroll data by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation shows net new enrollments were significantly higher under the Employees Provident Fund Organisation and the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation.

As per the data released by Mospi on Friday, 1.46 million net new subscribers were added to the retirement fund body EPFO in July. This is the highest enrollment in this financial year so far and is 31.28% higher than in June when 1.11 million net new subscribers were added to the EPFO.

Even ESIC witnessed a jump of 24.7% in new enrollments in July at 1.32 million subscribers compared to 1.05 million in June. The National Pension Scheme, however, registered a dip of 35.9% in new subscriber additions at 50,118 in July as against 78,265 additions in June.

Data further shows that of the total 1.46 million net subscribers added to EPFO, around 0.90 million were new members who came under the social security umbrella of EPFO for the first time while 0.93 million net subscribers exited and rejoined the EPFO by changing jobs within the establishments covered by the retirement fund body.

Of the 1.32 million subscribers added under ESIC, 1.09 million were male and 0.22 million were females. Under NPS, the highest number of subscribers were added by the state governments in July at 32,678 followed by the corporate sector at 10,607 and 6,833 by the central government.

As per the report, since the number of subscribers are from various sources, there are elements of overlap and the estimates are not additive. The report gives different perspectives on the levels of employment in the formal sector and does not measure employment at a holistic level, it further said. The data, however, is subject to change and date is continuously updated

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).

While EPF is applicable to establishments having more than 20 workers earning wages up to Rs 15,000 a month, ESIC applies to firms and establishments with 10 or more employees with wages up to Rs 21,000 a month.