Formal job creation surged in December 2021 with net new employees and subscribers added to the Employees Provident Fund Organisation, the Employees State Insurance Corporation and the National Pension Scheme, suggesting an uptick in the Indian labour market. This is contrary to November when the ESIC and NPS had witnessed a decline.
The payroll data by the ministry of statistics and programme implementation, released on Friday, shows net new subscriber addition under the Employees State Insurance Corporation jumped by 46.8% to 1.52 million compared to 1.03 million in November 2021. This is the highest addition to ESIC in the fiscal so far.
Even the Employees Provident Fund Organization witnessed a growth of 19.9% in net new addition in December 2021 at 1.46 million compared to November 2021 when the net new subscribers added to EPFO stood at 1.21 million.
The National Pension Scheme also witnessed a surge of 11.8% with 72,578 new subscribers added to it in December 2021 compared to 64,870 added in November. This is the third highest addition in the fiscal so far, highest being in June 2021 (78,265) and September 2021 (72,923).
As per the report, 1.28 million male subscribers were added to ESIC while 0.24 female subscribers were added to ESIC.
Of the total 1.46 million net subscribers added in December 2021, 0.91 million new members have been enrolled under EPF & MP Act, 1952 for the first time.
Approximately 0.54 million net subscribers exited but rejoined EPFO by opting to continue their membership with EPFO by transferring their PF accumulations from previous to present PF account instead of opting for final withdrawal.
Under NPS, maximum subscriber addition in December was from state government employees at 48,497 followed by central government employees (12,534) and 11,547 from the non-government or corporate sector.
The NSO report is based on the payroll data of new subscribers of various social security schemes run by ESIC, the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) and Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA). It has been releasing such data of these bodies since April 2018, covering the period starting from September 2017.
The report, titled ‘Payroll Reporting in India: An Employment Perspective – November 2021’, said since the number of subscribers is from various sources, there are elements of overlap, and the estimates are not additive.
NSO also said the report gives different perspectives on the levels of employment in the formal sector and does not measure employment at a holistic level.