India has created 52 million formal jobs in the past four years, with 47% of them being first jobs, according to the State Bank of India’s latest Ecowrap. This has been documented in payroll data from the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) and the National Pension Scheme (NPS). The report shows that over the four-year period, there were 48.6 million new EPF members, along with 3.1 million new NPS members. However, the actual net new payroll under EPFO was 22.7 million during the four-year period, and the second job was 21.7 million, according to the report.
In addition, Group Chief Economic Adviser, Mr. Soumya Kanti Ghosh, has predicted that if the trend of net new EPF subscribers continues for the whole fiscal year, then in FY24, the net new payroll is expected to exceed 16 million, with first payroll in the range of 7-8 million.
The report recommends utilising bank sakhis engaged under the National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) as banking correspondents to increase the participation of women in the labour force, highlighting the 27% share of women in the payroll data. It also suggests developing a policy that mandates 30% of the employees to be female banking correspondents in areas where women have limited access to and use of these accounts.
Since April 2018, the government has been publishing statistics on employment in the formal sector from September 2017 onwards. These statistics are based on the number of subscribers who have signed up for the Employees’ State Insurance (ESI) Scheme, the Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) Scheme, and the National Pension System (NPS).
