Is EPFO data right metric to show job creation? No, say experts citing its data limitations -TCA Sharad Raghavan

-ThePrint.in

Wage ceiling, mobility of lower-end workers, smaller establishments willfully avoiding registrations among factors that make EPF data flawed indicator, they assert

New Delhi: While the government often cites monthly data from the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) — the latest edition of which was released on Friday —  to show that formal sector employment is growing in India, economists say that the data is flawed, prone to inflation and captures only a small portion of the formal sector.

The data released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) shows that net additions to the EPF database, at 87.13 lakh in the first six months of financial year 2022-23, looks set to surpass the 122.3 lakh net additions in 2021-22.

The figure for the April-September 2022 period is higher than the full-year figures for 2018-19 (61.12 lakh), 2019-20 (78.6 lakh), and 2020-21 (77.1 lakh).

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