The provisional payroll data released on May 20 showed that EPFO added 14.41 lakh net members in March. The data indicates that around 7.47 lakh new members have been enrolled during March 2024.
A noticeable aspect is the dominance of the 18-25 age group constituting a significant 56.83 percent of the total new members added in March, which indicates that the majority of individuals joining the organised workforce are youth and are primarily first-time job seekers.
According to the data, approximately 11.80 lakh members exited and subsequently rejoined EPFO. These members switched their jobs and re-joined the establishments covered under the ambit of EPFO and opted to transfer their accumulations instead of applying for final settlement thus, safeguarding long-term financial well-being and extending their social security protection.
A gender-wise analysis of payroll data unveils that of 7.47 lakh new members around 2 lakh are females. The net female member addition during March stood at around 2.90 lakh. The addition is indicative of a broader shift towards a more inclusive and diverse workforce.
A month-on-month comparison of industry-wise data displays growth in the members working in establishments engaged in industries such as establishments engaged in manufacturing, marketing servicing, usage of computers, restaurants, chartered or regd. accountants, fish processing and non-veg food preservation, beedi making etc.
Of the total net membership, around 43 percent of the addition is from the expert services sector.
The social security body had added 15.48 lakh net members in February. The data indicated that around 7.78 lakh new members have been enrolled in the month.
In the last 6 and half years alone, more than 6.1 crore members joined the EPFO (Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation) fold, indicating the formalisation of the job market.
The data shows that the EPFO had added 61.12 lakh net subscribers in 2018-19, which increased to 78.58 lakh in 2019-20. However, it dipped to 77.08 lakh in 2020-21, mainly due to the pandemic effect and improved again to 1.22 crore in 2021-22 and 1.38 crore in 2022-23.
The above payroll data is provisional since the data generation is a continuous exercise, as updating employee records is a continuous process. The previous data hence gets updated every month. Since April 2018, the EPFO has been releasing payroll data covering the period from September 2017 onwards.
In the monthly payroll data, the count of members joining EPFO for the first time through an aadhaar-validated Universal Account Number (UAN), existing members exiting from coverage of EPFO and those who exited but re-joining as members, is taken to arrive at net monthly payroll.