Job creation in Feb lower than January

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In economics there is a famous Say’s law “Supply create its own demand”. This means that when there will be some production so supply will be there in the market but for producing the goods, workers will be hired. Workers will get salary and they will spend those salary on buying the goods produced in the economy.

Now that pent-up demand after covid has phased off, it needs further boost to ramp up the economy. However recent data from EPFO showed that employment is faltering. This pose dire concerns for the economy.

EPFO has recorded a net addition of 13.96 lakh new subscribers in February 2023. According to the data released by the retirement body, around 7.38 lakh new members have joined the body for the first time. The job creation is lower than 14.1 lakh in January.

The largest number of new joinees, 2.17 lakh, are in the 18-21 age group. This is followed by the 22-25 group with 1.91 lakh members.

The 18-25 age group constitutes 55.37 per cent of the total new members during the month. This indicates that the majority of the members joining the organised sector workforce of the country are first-time job seekers.

The rest of the addition of almost 10.15 lakh have regained employment. The EPFO membership rose by 8.59% compared to the last year.

These members switched their jobs and re-joined the establishments covered under EPFO and opted to transfer their accumulations instead of applying for final settlement thus, extending their social security protection.

The enrolments have been rising month-on-month in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand and West Bengal. The states logging the highest additions are Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Gujarat and Delhi.

These states together constitute 58.62 per cent of net member addition during the month. Of all the states, Maharashtra is leading the chart by adding 20.90 per cent of net members, followed by Tamil Nadu with 11.92 per cent.

The classification of industry-wise payroll data indicates that ‘Expert Services’ (consisting of manpower suppliers, normal contractors, security services, miscellaneous activities etc.) constitutes 41.17 per cent of total member addition during the month. Comparing industry-wise data with that of the previous month, higher enrolments have been noticed in industries namely — leather products, garment-making, establishments engaged in rendering courier services, fish processing and non-veg food preservation etc.