{"id":254671,"date":"2023-08-03T21:22:56","date_gmt":"2023-08-03T15:52:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=254671"},"modified":"2023-08-29T14:24:08","modified_gmt":"2023-08-29T08:54:08","slug":"the-contours-of-indias-formal-jobs-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/the-contours-of-indias-formal-jobs-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"The contours of India\u2019s \u2018formal jobs\u2019 crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Source<\/strong>&#8211; The post is based on the article <strong>\u201cThe contours of India\u2019s \u2018formal jobs\u2019 crisis\u201d <\/strong>published in the <strong>\u201cThe Hindu\u201d <\/strong>on <strong>3rd August 2023<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Syllabus: <\/strong>GS3- Indian economy and employment<\/p>\n<p><strong>Relevance:<\/strong> Statistics on employment<\/p>\n<p><strong>News<\/strong>&#8211; The article explains the EPF numbers on employment in India. It also explains the issues related to employment and employment statistics in India.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What is the employment scenario in India as revealed by EPFO data?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The <strong>monthly enrolment data of the Employees&#8217; Provident Fund (EPF)<\/strong> typically indicates a rise in contributors.<\/p>\n<p><strong>EPFO annual reports<\/strong> talk about the regular contributors. <strong>Regular contributors<\/strong> refer to employees who are enrolled in the EPF scheme and consistently make PF contributions throughout the year.<\/p>\n<p><strong>EPF Organization&#8217;s annual reports<\/strong> indicate that the number of r<strong>egular contributors<\/strong> to the scheme has shown little to no growth. It has even declined in recent years in some stances.<\/p>\n<p>Between 2012 and 2022, the count of<strong> regular contributors<\/strong> witnessed a <strong>substantial increase from 30.9 million to 46.3 million. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>However, the growth in the number of regular contributors has <strong>significantly slowed down<\/strong> over the past five years. From 2017 to 2022, the count of regular contributors only <strong>marginally increased from 45.11 million to 46.33 million. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This growth occurred during a period when <strong>overall EPF enrolments <\/strong>escalated from 210.8 million to 277.4 million.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What can be inferred from EPFO data on employment?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The number of individuals enrolled in the EPF is generally expected to be higher than the count of regular contributors due to issues like <strong>duplication and outdated membership data. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>However, it is concerning that in recent times, the gap between these two figures has been widening.<\/p>\n<p>EPF data suggests that over the past five years, there has been a mere <strong>net creation of 1.2 million formal jobs. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The <strong>divergence between EPF enrolments and regular contributors <\/strong>implies that a significant portion of EPF enrolments is associated with jobs of a <strong>temporary, subcontracted, or casual nature.<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2><strong>What are challenges related to employment in India?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>India is witnessing a growth in <strong>employment opportunities<\/strong>, but most of these jobs are not <strong>formal, stable, or well-paid. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Numerous highly qualified young individuals compete for a limited number of <strong>public or private sector job openings.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The stagnation in formal employment can partly be attributed to the impact of the pandemic. The <strong>COVID-19 crisis <\/strong>led to a decline in the number of EPF contributors,<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What are issues related to employment statistics in India?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Earlier , the EPFO used to release <strong>monthly reports on regular contributors<\/strong>. However, when the media highlighted the decline in EPF contributors, the EPFO disputed its own data and ceased to publish the <strong>monthly data series.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Indian government has shown neglect towards other potential sources of formal employment and labor data.<\/p>\n<p>For instance, the<strong> Directorate General of Employment and Training (DGET)<\/strong> used to collect employment market information, but it hasn&#8217;t been published since 2013.<\/p>\n<p>Historically, DGET data served as the original source of <strong>formal sector payroll employment data <\/strong>in India since the 1950s. The Reserve Bank of India relied on it for <strong>formal sector employment numbers and related calculations. <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source&#8211; The post is based on the article \u201cThe contours of India\u2019s \u2018formal jobs\u2019 crisis\u201d published in the \u201cThe Hindu\u201d on 3rd August 2023. Syllabus: GS3- Indian economy and employment Relevance: Statistics on employment News&#8211; The article explains the EPF numbers on employment in India. It also explains the issues related to employment and employment&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/the-contours-of-indias-formal-jobs-crisis\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The contours of India\u2019s \u2018formal jobs\u2019 crisis<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10320,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[216,8184,10498],"class_list":["post-254671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-3","tag-indian-economy","tag-the-hindu","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":3,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1698403205},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10320"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254671\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}