Even month-on-month, EPFO registered a decline of 9.15% in formal job creation as 1.53 million net new jobs were created in the retirement fund body in October 2023, shows the payroll data, released by the ministry of labour and employment on Saturday.
EPFO registered 1.24 million net new subscribers in April, 1.12 million in May, 1.35 million in June, 1.57 million in July, 1.49 million in August, 1.72 million in September and 1.53 million in October.
As per the data, 0.73 million new members were added to EPFO in the month under consideration, a dip of 5.2% compared to October 2023 but they constituted 57.3% of all the new joinees are in the age-group of 18-25 years.
“This shows that the majority of the members joining the organised sector workforce are mostly first-time job seekers in this age-group,” the ministry of labour and employment said in a statement.
According to the payroll data, 1.06 million EPFO subscribers exited but rejoined the organisation after switching jobs. “They opted to transfer their accumulations instead of applying for final settlement, thus extending their social security protection with EPFO,” it said. Gender-wise analysis of payroll data represents that out of the total 0.73 million new members added during the month, around 0.19 million are new female members, joining EPFO for the first time. Also, the net female member addition during the month stood at around 0.28 million. “The percentage of net female members out of net subscriber addition stood at 20.05%, which is highest since September 2023, showing a growing participation of female employees in the organized sector workforce,” it said.
State-wise analysis of payroll data denotes that net member addition continues to be highest in the states of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Haryana and Delhi.
“These states constitute around 58.8% of net member addition, adding a total of 0.82 million members during the month,” it said, adding Maharashtra added the highest number of new subscribers and constituted 21.6% of net members added during the month.
The ministry said a significant jump in formal worker addition has come from establishments engaged in the agriculture farms, coffee plantations, sugar, rubber plantations, tiles etc.
“Of the total net membership, around 40.94% addition is from expert services (consisting of manpower suppliers, normal contractors, security services, miscellaneous activities etc.),” it said.
EPFO has been releasing payroll data covering the period September, 2017 onwards. In monthly payroll data, the count of members joining EPFO for the first time through 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.
