More than 44 lakh new subscribers were added to the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) between September 2017 and May 2018, according to a new payroll data released by the government. Maximum subscribers of 7,43,608 were added in the month of May 2018.
The data released by EPFO is provisional as updation of employee records is a continuous process and data gets updated in subsequent months. The body has said that the data it released may include temporary employees, whose contributions may not be continuous for the entire year.
The EPFO manages social security funds of workers in the organised sector. It runs three social security schemes—Employees Provident Fund Scheme 1952, Employees Deposit Linked Scheme 1976, and Employees Pension Scheme 1995. It manages the accounts of over six crore members and has a corpus of over Rs 10 lakh crore.
The estimated total number of new National Pension Scheme (NPS) subscribers during the period September 2017 to May 2018 is 5,68,376 persons. More than 92 lakh new subscribers were added in the ESIC between September 2017 and May 2018.
The number of members subscribing these schemes gives an idea of the level of employment in formal sector. The numbers may give ammunition to the government in the debate on jobless growth.
The ministry of statistics and programme implementation has been bringing out this data to given an idea about employment in the formal sector.
It brought out the first release of employment related statistics in formal sector in April, 2018 covering the period September 2017 to February 2018, using information on the number of subscribers who have availed benefits under three major schemes, namely, Employees’ Provident Fund (EPFO), Employees’ State Insurance Scheme (ESIC) and National Pension Scheme (NPS).