How acute the unemployment scenario is in Odisha was brought to the fore by yet another data released by the Employment Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) on Monday last. It is not a survey but a headcount data like the Census.
The data released reveals very unquiet numbers for Odisha as the State in March 2018 could see new jobs that were mere 0.89 per cent of total new jobs generated in the country. The result is Odisha languished at distant 14th among 22 major States and UTs.
Sample this: As per EPFO net payroll data for 18-25 years, when the country sees new jobs counting to a high of over 3.49lakh in the month of March 2018 alone; Odisha could see new jobs totalling to a mere 3,110 only. Similarly, during the period from January to March 2018, the State saw new jobs numbering around 9,592 vis-a-vis a whopping of 10.32lakh nationally.
The EPFO headcount net payroll data, further, for the period from September 2017 to March 2018 reveals that Odisha saw new jobs numbering around mere 12, 574 only vis-a-vis a whopping of around 23 lakh new jobs nationally.
However, some consoling fact for Odisha is it is ahead in generation of new jobs from States like Bihar, Kerala, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Assam, Himachal Pradesh and Goa, but along with them it figured among the bottom – ten in country.
The top-10 major new jobs generators in country respectively are: Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Gujarat, Haryana, Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Rajasthan.
Why the EPFO net payroll numbers are very distressing for Odisha is the population in the age-group of 18-25 yrs is estimated at a whopping around 34 lakh, and active job-seekers in the State are estimated at over 2.6lakh at the end of year 2017.
This statistics shows the pathetic joblessness scenario in State as when over 2.6lakh fervently searched for jobs, the job-offer here counts to mere thousands. If backlogs are to be taken into account then, according to CMIE, the total active jobseekers in Odisha swell to a whopping 85 lakh.
Even, the live registry maintained by the State Employment Exchange shows that a whopping around 20 lakh have registered to find a suitable job in Odisha.
Since expert services like banking, finance, insurance and stocks etc are the major new job generators in the country, the lack of such diversified service sector in Odisha is proving a handicap for new jobs generation in State.
Other major job churners in country, as per EPFO data, are trading – commercial establishments, electrical, mechanical or general engineering products. Significantly, the engineering goods sectors in Odisha have very poor footprints.
Why the EPFO net payroll data is significant to assess creation of new jobs in IndiaIJ According to the Centre for Statistics Organisation (CSO), the EPFO net payroll data measures new job creations in the formal or organised sector.
A study by SBI Group Chief Economic Advisor Dr Soumya Kanti Ghosh and IIM Bangalore Professor Pulak Ghosh explains that in EPFO’s net payroll data for 18-25 years with non-zero contributions indicate the high probability of new recruited ones in a month/year.