Slow progress

The provisional payroll data from the National Statistical Office (NSO) under the statistics and programme implementation ministry released that net new EPFO subscriber addition reflect a fall of 7.1 per cent to 1.69 in August as compared to 1.82 million in July, on 25 October. The figures recorded for the month of April, May and June were 1.53 million, 1.68 million and 1.83 million, respectively. The net subscriber addition in the ESIC registered at 1.46 million in August marking a 8 per cent decline as compared to 1.58 million in July

After considering the enrolments with the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) and for the National Pension Scheme (NPS), Formal job creation in India had slowed down in August after showing good performance during previous four months.

The provisional payroll data from the National Statistical Office (NSO) under the statistics and programme implementation ministry released that net new EPFO subscriber addition reflect a fall of 7.1 per cent to 1.69 in August as compared to 1.82 million in July, on 25 October.

The figures recorded for the month of April, May and June were 1.53 million, 1.68 million and 1.83 million, respectively. The net subscriber addition in the ESIC registered at 1.46 million in August marking a 8 per cent decline as compared to 1.58 million in July.

On the other hand, new enrolments for the insurance programme had reported a net of 1.56 million, in June, 1.51 million in May and 1.28 million in April. Whereas, the NPS witnessed a marginal dip of 0.71 per cent to 65,543 new subscribers as against 66,014 in July.

The figures were on lower side despite the net addition being better than the previous three months, 58,425 in June, 60,926 in May and 64,569 in April.

The time when the entire country was just recovering from the second wave of the pandemic, an increase in formal jobs was witnessed as compared with August 2021, year-on-year basis. Also, this year formal jobs created in August went up by 14.4 per cent under the EPFO, 10.5 per cent under the ESIC and 16.3 per cent under the NPS as compared to last year.

For the first time, nearly 0.98 million new members, out of the total 1.69 million net subscribers added during August, have been enrolled under the social security cover of the EPF and MP Act, 1952, the ministry said.

Around 0.71 million net subscribers took an exit however re-joined the EPFO. Instead of claiming the final withdrawal, they transferred their accumulations from previous PF account to the current PF account.