NSO releases employment outlook report, new registrations show recovery began June 2020

The National Statistical Office (NSO) under the ministry of statistics and programme has released the payroll report from September 2017 to November 2020. The report shows that around 38 million new subscribers joined the Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) scheme with around 45 million subscribing to the Employees’ State Insurance (ESI) scheme and over 2 million contributed to the National Pension Scheme (NPS) of the Centre, state governments and corporate schemes during the same period.

The ministry brings out the employment-related statistics in the formal sector covering the period September 2017 onwards, using the information on the number of subscribers who have subscribed under the three major schemes. The next report is scheduled to come on February 25, 2021.

Here are the key points:

1. From September 2017 to November 2020, there has been an increase of over a million in new female subscribers to the EPF scheme with the same increase in new male subscribers.

2. The new subscription in EPF scheme saw a major decline for both men and women from April 2018 to March 2020. While around 13.9 million new workforces joined the EPF scheme during the period of 2018 to 2019, the new subscriptions fell to around 10.5 million from 2019 to 2020.

3. April 2020 saw the least number of new subscriptions to the EPF scheme with around 150,000 men entering the scheme, while only 40,000 women joined the scheme.

4. While there has been an increase in the number of women registering for the ESI scheme from 2017 to 2020 the gap between the two genders enrolling in the ESI scheme remains huge.

5. As of March 2020, around 12.4 million men joined the ESI scheme and paid a contribution towards while only 2.7 million women registered for the scheme and are paying for it.

6. The least registration in the ESI scheme for both men and women in the formal sector came in the month of April 2020 post the coronavirus-induced lockdown at the end of March.

7. As per the report maximum number of new contributors for NPS were the non-government corporate sector employees.

8. As of March 2020, over 757,000 new subscribers contributed to the NPS scheme from the corporate sector in comparison to 496,000 state government employees and the least contribution from the central government with 118,000 new subscribers contributing to the scheme.

9. However, the gap between the male employees and female employees contributing to the NPS scheme is huge in all three sectors. Less than 50 per cent of the new subscribers to the NPS scheme were women.

10. The central government saw maximum new subscribers to the NPS scheme in April 2020, after that the contributions from the sector declined.

11. For the state government and corporate sector, minimum contributions came in the month of April 2020 and June 2020 respectively.

12. In all the three schemes, the number of new registrations increased after June 2020, the time when the coronavirus restrictions started easing out in the country.

12. The total number of registrations in the EPF scheme and ESI scheme was maximum in September 2020, giving signs of recovery.

14. The new subscriptions in all the three schemes from the other gender have shown an increase from 2017 to 2020 the report showed their representation in the formal workforce is still very low.