Employees’ Provident Fund Organization (EPFO), which administers retirement funds, recruited 17.89 lakh net new members as of June 2023, according to a statement released on Sunday by the labor ministry.
The information indicated that 3,491 businesses had given their workers access to EPFO’s social security benefits by sending their first ECR during the month.
Payroll statistics from one month to the next (MoM) revealed an increasing trend in enrollment, with a gain of over 9.71% net members over May.
The information showed that in June 2023, the most new members joined since August 2022, close to 10.14 lakh. The age range of 18 to 25 years represents 57.87% of the total number of new members acquired throughout the month.
According to a government announcement, “this shows an increasing trend in youth enrollment, who are mostly first-time job seekers joining the organized sector workforce of the country.”
While this was happening, the number of people joining the Employees’ Provident Fund for the first time increased to 1.10 million in June, the highest number since August 2022.
Payroll information indicates that around 12.65 lakh members left but afterwards returned to EPFO. In order to prolong their social security protection, these members chose to transfer their accumulations rather than petition for final settlement when they changed occupations and re-joined EPFO-covered companies, according to a press statement.
Payroll data analysis by gender reveals that 2.81 lakh of the 10.14 lakh new members who joined EPFO for the first time during June are new female members.
In the last 11 months, the proportion of new female workers entering the organized labor force has reached its greatest level. Additionally, there were around 3.93 lakh new female members added net throughout the month, which is also the largest number since August of last year.
The five states of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Gujarat, and Haryana had the largest net member addition, according to a state-by-state review of payroll data. With the addition of 10.80 lakh new members during the month, these states account for almost 60.40 percent of net member acquisition. Maharashtra is surpassing all other states by gaining 20.54% more net subscribers in a single month.
Notably, the payroll data is temporary since the process of updating personnel information requires continual data creation. As a result, the historical data is updated each month.
The EPFO began publishing payroll information in April 2018 for the period beginning in September 2017.
