The total number of jobs recorded by government-registered micro, small, and medium-sized businesses (MSMEs) has surpassed 23 crore. 5.49 crore MSMEs registered with the government’s Udyam portal have reported 23.14 crore jobs, up from 13.15 crore jobs by 2.33 crore registered MSMEs as of August last year, adding 10 crore jobs in the last 15 months, according to official data from the MSME Ministry.
In addition, 5.23 crore women were employed, and 2.84 crore jobs were created by 2.38 crore unofficial micro businesses that were certified by Udyam. Microbusinesses make up 5.41 crore of all registered units, small businesses 7.27 lakh, and medium-sized businesses just 68,682. When the Udyam portal went live in July 2020, there were 2.8 crore MSME jobs listed.
For the uninitiated, however, the MSME sector, which consists of 6.33 crore unincorporated non-agriculture units, has created 11.10 crore jobs in both rural and urban areas nationwide (360.41 lakh in manufacturing, 0.07 lakh in non-captive electricity generation and transmission, 387.18 lakh in trade, and 362.82 lakh in other services), according to the National Sample Survey (2015-16), which was cited in the MSME Ministry’s annual reports for the previous few years.
In FY24, 46.7 million jobs (4.67 crore) were created nationwide, bringing the total number of jobs to 643.3 million (64.33 crore), according to RBI figures. According to the Economic Survey 2023–24, over 45% of jobs were in agriculture, which translates to between 25 and 29 crore jobs. The closure of some MSMEs has resulted in job losses even if the number of MSME jobs recorded has grown since 2020.
In July of this year, MSME Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi presented data to Parliament showing that since 2020, 49,342 MSMEs have closed, resulting in a total loss of 3,17,641 jobs. In his written response to a query in the Lok Sabha, Manjhi stated, “MSMEs de-registered or showed closure on the portal due to a number of reasons such as change in the company owner, certificate not required anymore, duplicate registration, and such other reasons.”
