Jobless Growth A Myth: Over 39 Lakh Jobs Created In Seven Months Till March, EPFO Data Shows

Around 39 lakh jobs were created in India in the seven month period ending March 2018, data released by the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) suggests.

According to Bloomberg, the data shows that 6.13 lakh new jobs were created in the month of March this year, higher than 5.89 lakh payrolls in February.

At least half of all payrolls were created in the service sector. A significant number of jobs were also created in the electric, mechanical or general engineering products, building and construction, trading and textiles sectors.

According to the Ecowarp report of the State Bank of India, data suggests that the rate of formalisation of the economy is around 15 per cent.

“As per the data, a total of 28,627 establishments remitted their first ECR during Sep '17 to Mar '18 period. This number is the proxy for existing organisations that migrated from less than 20 jobs. Thus, when we multiply the number of organisations with the EPFO cut-off / 20, this gives us the total payroll due to formalisation. This comes to 5.8 lakhs. Hence, the new employment (excluding formalisation) during Sep-Mar '18 is 33.6 lakh (39.3 lakh net of 5.7 lakh). This give us average formalisation of around 15 per cent,” the report reads.

In the organised sector, more than half of the jobs were created in Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat. While top ten states account for around 85 per cent of the payroll created, the top ten industries in the country account for 84 per cent of the total payroll created in the seven month period.

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