Latest Report suggests that India has had a growth of jobs every month in the past 6 months. The Employee Provident Fund has released some provisional figures for six months. This data shows that 3.11 Million workers joined the fund between September 2017 and February 2018 possibly due to a pick up in the economy and the federal support.
Talking in detail, India added 604,557 employees in January to the state-run social security fund followed by 472,075 employees in February. The new data on the payroll that released on Wednesday gave a clear picture of the number of jobs increased in the past 6 months.
As per Soumya Kanti Ghosh, Chief Economist at SBI, this growth in the number of jobs in India during the given period will help the government in filling the missing link for policymaking.
Besides, it’s quite evident that government will be able to deflect the criticism of lack of growth in the jobs. Apparently, this hike in the number of jobs will also help the Modi govt in showing that the promise (made before 2014 elections) of more job opportunities is actually being fulfilled.
Making an attempt to add more workforces to the organized sector, PM Modi had announced earlier this year that the state would partially cover employers’ EPF contributions for three years. Under this, the government decided to cover an amount of up to 12% of the employees’ salaries.
As of now, it’s mandatory for all employers and employees of companies with 20 or more workers to contribute to EPF. However, the government is planning to amend the rules and make it applicable to companies having 10 or more employees to open an account for the fund of the workers.
