Small cos create bulk of 20 million ESIC jobs

New Delhi: Micro and small enterprises with up to 20 employees, across the manufacturing and services sectors, created the bulk of more than 20 million formal jobs under the Employees' State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) in 2024-25 till February.

The provisional payroll date of ESIC, seen by ET, showed 20.9 million new registrations in the April 2024-February 2025 period, against 22.1 million in the entire 2023-24. New registrations averaged 1.9 million per month in 2024-25 and could touch a new high of 22.8 million for the entire fiscal.

The data, however, does not reflect the number of people who exited the formal job market or switched jobs.

A senior government official told ET that the surge in new registrations under the ESIC was primarily because of rapid expansion coverage to newer districts and improved services offered, prompting companies and workers to come under its fold.

According to the official, most registrations were from small and medium enterprises with up to 250 workers as low wages in these enterprises result in bulk hiring, thereby pushing up numbers.

"The convergence of the ESIC with facilities of Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY) to provide secondary and the tertiary medical services to over 140 million ESIC beneficiaries at over 30,000 ABPMJAY-empanelled hospitals have made the scheme attractive to workers," said the official, who did not wish to be identified.