The National Statistical Office (NSO) of Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation on Friday released a report saying that the Employee State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) scheme has got around 11.56 lakh new members in February 2020 against 12.19 lakh members in the previous month.
According to the report, similarly, the EPFO Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has enrolled 10.34 lakh new members in February as compared to 10.71 lakh in the preceding month. The new jobs are just before the corona pandemic aggravated and struck all sectors. March onwards data would actually reveal the blow the disease has struck on employments in India.
The NSO report titled ‘Payroll Reporting in India: An Employment Perspective - February 2020’, is based on the payroll data of new subscribers of various social security schemes run by ESIC, retirement fund body EPFO and pension fund regulator PFRDA. It has been releasing such data of these bodies since April 2018, covering a period starting from September 2017.
The report said gross enrolments of new subscribers with ESIC were 1.49 crore during 2018-19. It also showed that during the period from September 2017 to February 2020, around 3.75 crore new subscribers joined the ESIC scheme.
The report noted that gross new enrolments with ESIC during the September 2017-March 2018 period were 83.35 lakh. According to NSO, around 10.34 lakh new enrolments with the EPFO were recorded in February 2020, compared with 10.71 lakh in the preceding month. However, during the April-February period in 2019-20, the number of net new subscribers rose to 76.53 lakh compared to 61.12 lakh recorded by the EPFO in entire 2018-19. The net new enrolments were 15.52 lakh during September 2017-March 2018.
The latest data showed that during September 2017-February 2020, around 3.29 crore (gross) new subscribers joined the Employees’ Provident Fund Scheme.
The NSO report said that since the number of subscribers is from various sources, there are elements of overlap and the estimates are not additive. The NSO said the report gives different perspectives on the levels of employment in the formal sector and does not measure employment at a holistic level.
Amid coronavirus lockdown, unemployment rate has risen to 26.2 percent in India in the third week of April, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy ((CMIE). Similarly, the rate of labour participation has plunged to 35.4 percent from 35.5 percent. The employment rate has now dipped to 26.1 percent as against 27 percent in the earlier week, CMIE added.