The decline in the number of new subscriptions was greater among women than among menIndia’s formal labor market witnessed a decline in August with all three social security schemes recording a decline in the number of new subscribers, data released by the Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation (MoSPI) showed on Friday.
New subscriptions to the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) program and the National Pension Scheme (NPS) reached the lowest levels since the start of the fiscal year, according to the MoSPI report ‘Payroll Reporting in India: An Employment Perspective – August 2024’ .
New EPF subscriptions fell 15% month-on-month to around 930,000 in August, while new Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) subscriptions fell 11% to 1.5 million and NPS fell 13% fell to 54,869.
The decline in the number of new subscriptions was greater among women than among men.
Within the EPF scheme, new subscriptions for women fell by 20.3%, compared to a decline of 13.4% for men between July and August.
In the ESIC scheme, the decline over the same period was 14.4% for women and 10.2% for men. In the NPS this was 18.2% and 10.3% for women and men respectively. While NPS subscriptions rose in the central government and private sector, they fell in state governments.
Between April and August, new subscriptions to EPFO and NPS fell by 3.7% and 50.4% respectively, while those on ESIC rose by 22%.
