NEW DELHI: Bucking the slump created by Covid-19 pandemic since the past 2 years, India created 146 lakh payroll in financial year 2021-22, a report by State Bank of India (SBI) economists showed on Friday.
Of this total, about 138.2 lakh payroll was created through Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), while 7.8 lakh of them were created through National Pension Scheme (NPS).
The number of payroll created in FY22 is 54.17 per cent higher than 94.7 lakh created in previous financial year 2020-21.
Economists at SBI said this indicates that even though labour market in India faced massive disruptions in FY21 and FY22, however, it did not do that badly.
The report further showed a break of payroll created by EPFO. As per it, 60 lakh were through 2nd payroll and 67 lakh were first payroll.
Besides, 11.2 lakh were added through formalisation. This was 1.9 lakh higher than formalisatons in previous fiscal, reflecting that disruptions in the MSME space was turning the corner.
In terms of increment, there was a jump in first time payroll by 16 lakh, second time payroll by 2.58 lakh.
"This clearly indicates that people were coming back to the labour market in later part of FY22, as the situation had improved at that time," the report said.
18 lakh more fresh jobs created in FY22
Total payroll generation of EPFO and NPS combined was almost 17.7 lakh higher than previous fiscal, the report showed.
Economists at SBI estimated the actual net new payroll (first job/fresh job) adjusted for re-joined/re-subscribed members and formalization (based on ECR data).
As per the data arrived by them, the actual net new payroll was 60 lakh for FY22 -- 16 lakh higher than the actual net new payroll generated in FY21.
The second job (or the exited members who re-joined and re-subscribed) increased by 25.8 lakh to 67.0 lakh in FY22 compared to FY21.
However, the number of new members who joined in or after September 2017 and exited declined by 6.9 lakh in FY21 as compared to an increase of 1.5 lakh in FY20.
Rise in second payroll indicates that higher number of people exited job market in search for better/new positions (which was obviously as the Covid-19 restrictions are almost over).
It further noted that data from NPS indicated 7.76 lakh new subscribers in FY22. Of this, state government payrolls jumped by 4.95 lakh, non-government by 1.47 lakh and central government by 1.33 lakh.
Hence, there was a massive rise of 1.47 lakh in NPS data as compared to previous year.
Taking the data of both EPFO and NPS, total payrolls amounted to almost 18 lakh higher than last year.
Wage bills
The report further analysed employee expenses data for over 2,000 listed companies.
As per it, except for very small companies with turnover up to Rs 50 crore, employee expenses increased in double digits in FY22.
Meanwhile, in FY21, barring big companies with turnover more than Rs 1,000 crore, employee expenses had declined in every other types of companies.
"This turnaround indicates that companies are hiring in FY22," the report said.
Financial savings surge
Household financial savings surged by Rs 6.91 lakh crore in FY21.
The report noted that was a result of fall in discretionary spending amidst the pandemic and the associated forced saving that it had made people do.
Besides, concern related to income flows in near term led to a surge in precautionary savings.
As the pandemic disrupted lives, people became wary of their health and this led to a jump in insurance, provident and pension funds that surged by Rs 1.91 lakh crore.
