Monthly Payroll Data released for the first time

The Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), Employees' State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) and the Pension fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) have released payroll data.

India has, for the first time, introduced monthly payroll reporting for the formal sector to facilitate analysis of new and continuing employment.

The payroll data, categorized age-wise, for the months September, 2017 to February, 2018 has been released on 25th April, 2018.

The numbers from these three organisations are an eye opener and put an end to all speculations and conjectures regarding job creation in the economy. They also strengthen the efforts made by the Government on job creation and formalization of the economy.

There are other organisations also, such as ICAI, Bar Council, Medical Council and other professional bodies which could have such monthly data for payroll reporting for their professionals.

Data released by EPFO shows that during September, 2017 to February, 2018, 31.10 lakh new additions across all age groups were made in the payroll. Given that the data for recent months is provisional due to continuous updation of employee records, this could be called a conservative estimate. The actual figures may well be more than this.

From the PFRDA, the New Pension Scheme (NPS) data indicates generation of 4.2 lakh new payroll during the given period, that too only from Tier-I account. NPS currently manages the corpus of around 50 lakh employees in State and Central government. For this study the Central and State autonomous bodies have been shown under Central and State governments respectively, while non-government refers to the corporate sector employees.

From the above two organisations itself, 35.3 lakh new payrolls were generated during this six month period.

In addition, the ESIC data also mirrors the payroll growth shown in the other two sets of data from EPFO and PFRDA. Since ESIC data is not Aadhar seeded there is further scope of some modifications.

The payroll data from these three organisations would now be released every month. Given that till now there was no such system in place, this data would provide a more firm basis for various analysis and studies of the economy, job creation, as also aid in policy making. We may as well as bid goodbye to the days of analyses based on random sample surveys. Hopefully this would also end the debateregarding and criticisms about jobless growth in the economy.

A more constructive phase of focusing on deriving the most out of this data for furthering development should now begin.

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