India shows jobs growth as 3.1 million join PF

A new data series on payrolls released by the EPF for the first time on Wednesday, however, gives an incomplete picture of how many new jobs are being created in the non-farm sector. The provisional data showed 4,72,075 employees were added to the state-run social security fund in February, and 604,557 joined in January, bringing the six-month total to 3.11 million.

“The data shows there was a good increase in jobs every month in the last six months, which will now help fill the missing link for policy-making,” said Soumya Kanti Ghosh, chief economist at SBI.

To bring more of the vast workforce into the organised sector, Prime Minister Narendra Modi this year announced the state would partially cover employers’ contributions to the EPF for three years. The government says it will cover an amount up to 12 percent of employees’ salaries.

Modi won the 2014 election promising to revitalise the economy and create strong jobs growth, but some critics have accused his government of making exaggerated claims over just how well the economy is doing.

India’s growth stuttered after the government’s decision to take high denomination bank notes out of circulation overnight in late 2016 in a bid to flush out money that was being kept out the taxman’s sight.

The unemployment rate in India nearly doubled in the nine months through March, to hit 6.23 percent, and is like to raise to 6.75 percent, according to estimates from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), a private consultancy. CMIE reckoned the number of jobs actually fell to 406 million in fiscal year just ended, down from 406.7 million in the previous year.