Payroll data can be used to gauge job creation: Statistics Ministry

Payroll data is one of the tools that can be used to gauge job creation in the formal sector, a report by the Statistics Ministry said.

Following the recommendations of a government-constituted task force, an initiative to report the progress made in formal employment using measurable data from administrative records or payroll data has been launched, the ministry said today.

According to the report, Payroll Reporting in India - A Formal Employment Perspective, released by the Statistics Ministry, the "measurement of job creation, employment and unemployment are usually done through statistical estimates from Household surveys, Enterprise/Establishment surveys, Administrative data and (payroll) data from government schemes".

The report has been released close on the heels of Niti Aayog coming out with estimates that showed creation of 35.3 lakh new jobs between September 2017 and February this year.

Retirement fund body EPFO, state health insurer ESIC and PFRDA last month released payroll data to help estimate employment creation in the country.

Niti Aayog in a release last month had said that the payroll data from the three organisations would be released every month. "We may as well as bid goodbye to the days of analyses based on random sample surveys. Hopefully this would also end the debate regarding and criticisms about jobless growth in the economy," the Aayog had said.

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

The move came after a government-appointed task force on 'improving employment data' under the Niti Aayog Vice Chairperson, recommended the same in August, 2017.

In pursuance to the recommendations of the Task Force, the government has started an initiative to report the progress made in formal employment using measurable data from administrative records (payroll data), the ministry said.

This is the first in the series of employment related statistics, for selected areas, that the ministry is intending to bring out on a regular basis.

As the levels of employment are from various sources, there are elements of overlap and the estimates are not additive. Detailed information is separately published on the respective organisational websites for the period September, 2017 till February, 2018, it added.