National pension system logs 79,000 fresh subscribers in May: NSO

As many as 79,080 fresh subscribers joined the National Pension System (NPS) in May, with state government employees constituting nearly half of these new subscribers, the latest data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) on Thursday showed.

Of the total subscribers, 36,712 belonged to the state governments, while 21,069 belonged to the central government. On the other hand, 21,299 subscribers belonged to the corporate segment during the month.

The corporate component of the scheme is voluntary in nature and includes people working in public sector organisations, private limited companies, or public sector banks among others.

The Union government has mandated the NPS for all its new employees, hence, this can be used as a proxy to gauge fresh recruitments at the central level. However, since a few states like Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, and Punjab had announced a return to the Old Pension Scheme (OPS), thereby abandoning NPS, it cannot be used as an exact metric to gauge hirings at the state level.

An age-wise analysis showed that the share of fresh subscribers belonging to the 18-28 age group increased to 44.9 per cent (35,518) from 43.8 per cent in the previous month. This is crucial as subscribers belonging to this age group are usually first-timers in the job market and thus reflect its robustness.

Managed by the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA), the NPS is designed on a defined contribution basis. Here, both the subscriber and the employer contribute an equal amount to a person’s account. It was made mandatory for all new central government employees from January 1, 2004, except the armed forces.

Since April 2018, the NSO has been bringing out employment-related statistics in the formal sector, using information on the number of subscribers under the Employees’ Provident Fund Scheme, Employees’ State Insurance Scheme, and the National Pension System.