Govt hopeful of bouncing back in employment market

New Delhi, Jan 31 : Huge job losses during the pandemic was a serious challenge before the government, so a safety net strategy was adopted to heal the badly affected job economy. With the various government schemes, the government is hopeful to bounce back in the employment market, indicates the economic survey.

Using the data in the form of maps, the economic survey banks on the new developing start-up ecosystem in the country.

"You can see the startup culture in 2016-17 in India and in December 2021, there is a sea change, as just a few years back we had few start-ups pockets in India, mostly around the metro cities, but now we have a strong presence of start-ups innovation in states like Bihar, north-east," said principal economic advisor Sanjeev Sanyal when asked about how government counters the negative sentiments in the employment market.

"The most encouraging part is the capital expenditure by the central and many state governments, particularly in infrastructure development by 67 %, which has huge potential to create massive jobs, and this way we can tackle this challenge easily. Secondly, the positive growth in exports is a sign that our industry sector is getting on track," said the principal economic advisor, when asked about the roadmap for employment generation in post-pandemic time.

"The major job creator sector are service industry, particularly the travel, tourism, hospitality and other fields, but unfortunately these have been hit by the pandemic and then lockdowns or restrictions, so we need to work on this and have to create an environment where we can open these fields, and for that vaccination is the solution," added Sanyal.

Sanyal and his team banks on the EPFO data which says that the Employee Provident Fund Organization has added 13.95 lakh net subscribers during the month of November 2021, showing an increase of around 2.85 lakh net additions over the previous month of October 2021. A year-on-year comparison of payroll data also shows an increase of around 3.84 lakh in net payroll additions in November 2021 as compared to 10.11 lakh net subscribers added during the previous year in November 2020, informed the ministry of labour and employment.

Of the total 13.95 lakh net subscribers added during the month, 8.28 lakh new members have come under the social security cover of EPFO for the first time. Approximately 5.67 lakh net subscribers exited but rejoined EPFO by changing jobs within the establishments covered under the purview of EPF & MP Act, 1952. The subscribers opted to continue their membership with EPFO by transferring their PF accumulations from previous to present PF accounts instead of applying for final withdrawal.