Numbers show next govt's job at hand is to boost employment in India

Generation of jobs would be one of the main tasks for the new government. In this connection, subscription to Employment Provident Fund (EPF) provides bit of an indication in the organised sector.  According to official numbers, 6.79 million jobs were created in FY'19. There is no comparable data for the previous year since compilation of this data started from September, 2017. However, the data cannot be taken on its face value. Besides duplication, the foremost criticism of the numbers is that it shows unnecessary bump. 

This is so because the moment a unit employs twenty workers, it has to subscribe to EPF. That means, that if a unit has 19 members, none of them would count in payroll data, the moment one person is added, all twenty would be taken as the net addition in the job market. As many as 814,812 net subscribers joined EPF in March, the second highest in FY'19 after January when 831,058 were added. 

However, the numbers released initially are being revised down later. For instance, around 896,000 members joined EPF in February, according to figures released last month. However, the new figures put it at 788,029.