Formal job creation under EPFO up by 2.7% to 1.62 million in January: Payroll data

Formal job creation under the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation went up by 2.69% in January to 1.62 million as compared to 1.56 million formal jobs created in December, shows the provisional payroll data released by the ministry of labour and employment on Sunday.

Year-on-year the net new subscribers added to EPFO went up by 7.8% when compared to 1.48 million net new subscribers added in January 2023.

As per the data, of the total net subscribers added to EPFO in the month under consideration, 0.80 million are new members.


Of these, 18-25 age group subscribers constituted 56.4% of the total new members added in January. “This indicated that the majority of individuals joining the organized workforce are youth, primarily first-time job seekers,” labour ministry said in a statement.

Further, 1.21 million members exited and subsequently rejoined EPFO in January 2024. “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,” the ministry said.

Gender-wise analysis of payroll data shows that out of 0.80 million new members added, around 0.20 million are new female members while the net female member addition during the month stood at around 0.30 million.

“The female member addition is indicative of a broader shift towards a more inclusive and diverse workforce.,” it added.

According to the ministry, 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, it said.

Retirement fund body EPFO has been releasing the payroll data from April-2018, 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.