EPFO adds 14.65 lakh net new subscribers in July

Formal job creation picked up pace in July as more and more industries and establishments opened up to hiring to meet spurt in demand ahead of the festive season. Payroll data by the Employees Provident Fund Organisation shows 1.46 million net new subscribers were added to the retirement fund body in July, the highest in the fiscal so far. The net new enrollments in July are 31.28% higher than June when 1.11 million net new subscribers were added to EPFO.

The provisional payroll data of EPFO, released on Monday, shows of the total 1.46 million net subscribers added during the month, around 0.90 million new members have come under the social security coverage of Employees’ Provident Funds Scheme for the first time.

During the month, around 0.93 million net subscribers exited but rejoined EPFO by changing jobs within the establishments covered by EPFO while around 0.56 million net subscribers exited but rejoined EPFO by changing jobs within the establishments covered by EPFO.

“This shows that the majority of subscribers opted to continue their membership with EPFO, by transferring their past accumulations from their previous job to the current PF account rather than applying for final withdrawal.”

As per the data, Maharashtra, Haryana, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka are top states in adding new subscribers and these together added approximately 0.91 million subscribers during the month, which is around 62.62 % of total net payroll addition across all age groups.

Gender-wise analysis indicates that the share of female enrolment is approximately 20.56% of the total net subscriber addition during the month. The net addition of female subscribers increased to 3.01 lakh during July 2021 as compared to 2.18 lakh in June, 2021. “This is largely due to lower female member exits and higher new joining during the month,” it added.

Industry-wise payroll data indicates that ‘expert services’ category (consisting of manpower agencies, private security agencies and small contractors etc.) constitutes 41.62% of total subscriber addition during the month.

As per the data, the highest number of net enrolments of 0.72 million was in the age-group of 18-25 years, which is 49.31% of total net additions during the month of July, 2021. This is followed by net new enrollments of 0.28 million in the 29-35 years age group. “Many first time job seekers are joining the organised sector workforce in large numbers.,” it added.

“The payroll data is provisional since the data generation is a continuous exercise as updation of employee record is a continuous process. The previous data hence gets updated every month,” EPFO added.

EPFO has been releasing payroll data covering the period September 2017 onwards from May 2018. EPFO provides provident fund, pension benefits to the members on their retirement and family pension and insurance benefits to their families in case of untimely death of the member.

EPFO is the country’s principal organization responsible for providing social security benefits to the organized and semi-organized sector workforce covered under the statute of EPF & MP Act, 1952.