Formal employment, as measured by the number of subscribers in the Employees’ Provident Fund (EPFO), Employees’ State Insurance Scheme (ESIC), and the National Pension Scheme (NPS), witnessed double-digit growth in May 2018, according to official payroll data released by the Ministry of Statistics on Wednesday.
The data shows that 7,43,608 new subscribers enrolled in EPFO in May 2018, up from 6,76,147 in April, registering a growth of 10%. Within this, about 34% of the subscribers were in the age group of 18-21 years, 25% in the 22-25 year age group, and 14.2% in the 29-35 age group.
Similarly, the number of new subscribers in the ESIC stood at 12,75,658 in May compared with 10,45,048 in April, a growth of 22%. Here too, the 22-25 age group contributed the highest proportion — 27.6% — of the new subscribers, followed by the 18-21 age group, which accounted for 21% of the new subscribers.
The number of new subscribers in NPS grew to 56,336 in May 2018, from 46,863 in April, a growth of 20.2%.
In NPS, the highest contribution to the number of new subscribers came from the above 35 years age group, which made up 29.3% of the new subscribers.
The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, however, clarified that simply looking at this data would not provide a complete picture of formal employment in the country.
“As mentioned in the earlier series, the levels of employment are from various sources, there are elements of overlap and the estimates are not additive,” the Ministry said in the release. “The present report gives different perspectives on the levels of employment in the formal sector and does not measure employment at a holistic level.”