Formal job creation declines in June, shows Govt payroll data

 New Delhi:Fresh formal job creation as measured by the number of new subscribers added to Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF), Employees’ State Insurance (ESI) and the National Pension Scheme (NPS), declined in June when compared with the previous month, data released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation showed on Friday.

The newly registered employees and contributors under the ESI scheme during the month of June 2024 declined to 16.19 lakh, which is 6.5% lower when compared with the previous month’s 17.33 lakh.

ESI is applicable to establishments employing 10 or more workers. For health and medical institutions, the threshold limit is 20 or more workers.

Out of the total newly registered employees under the ESI scheme during the month of June, 12.66 lakh or 78.2% were male while 21.8% were female.

As per the official data, 1.67 crore new employees were registered under the ESI scheme during the financial year 2023-24. This number was marginally lower when compared with the previous year.

While the data does not give a breakup of the employees moving out of the ESI scheme, an analysis of the data shows that this number is substantial.

Total number of ESI subscribers, who paid to avail the benefits of the scheme during June 2024 stood at 2.92 crore. During 2020-21, this number stood at 2.47 crore. The number of newly registered employees during 2021-22 stood at 1.49 crore, and 1.67 crore each in 2022-23 and 2023-24.

If we add the number of newly registered subscribers for  2021-22 to 2023-24, the total comes out to 4.83 crore. However, the net addition during this period stood at just 45 lakh.