Video Editor: Sandeep Suman
Unemployment has been making headlines for a while now, and has also given way to several youth movements. At such a time, a headline which reads along the lines of ‘Good News For the Govt, 73 Lakh. New Jobs Provided in 15 months’, will definitely grab eyeballs.
This data, which was provided by the EPFO (Employees Provident Fund Organisation), states that 73.50 lakh new entries have been registered in the Employee Provident Fund between September 2017 to November 2018. However, these are the names of salaried employees who have EPF accounts, which are simply entered in EPFO registers.
But this database can’t be the basis for data on job creation. The data of 15 months shown by EPFO could also include people who were earlier employed on contract and later given a salaried position. Many individuals own two-three EPFO accounts but they are surely not working two-three jobs.
Another issue is that an organisation must hire at least 20 employees to register in EPFO.
Suppose a company has employed 19 individuals. Another employee is hired and the total becomes 20. Now, your company is listed in EPFO. And the register will reflect an increase of 20 entries. But in reality, 19 of them were already employed. Only one new job has been provided. Hence, it won’t be correct to base your arguments on this database.
As the general elections are knocking on the nation’s door, it begs the question whether the EPFO data is a piece of propaganda, and also demands the user looks beyond facts, figures and claims to understand the nuances behind them.
(This article was originally published on Quint Hindi.)
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