EPFO adds 15.29 lakh members in October, higher by 18.2% on-year

Retirement fund body EPFO added 15.29 lakh members on a net basis in October, up by 18.22 per cent compared to the same month last year, according to payroll data released on Wednesday.

Around 7.72 lakh new members have come under the social security coverage of the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) in October 2023, an increase of 6.07 per cent over the year-ago month, a labour ministry statement said.

The EPFO's provisional payroll data released highlights that the EPFO has added 15.29 lakh net members in the month of October 2023, the ministry said. Among the newly joined members, the age group of 18-25 years constitutes 58.60 per cent of total new members added during the month.

This shows that the majority of the members joining the organised sector workforce are first-time job seekers in this age group.

The data also showed that approximately 11.10 lakh members exited but rejoined the EPFO.

These members have switched their jobs and re-joined the establishments covered under EPFO and opted to transfer their accumulations instead of applying for final settlement thus, extending their social security protection with the EPFO. A declining trend in the number of exits has been observed for the last four months, the ministry observed.

In absolute terms, the number of members exiting EPFO in October 2023 is the lowest in the last 12 months, it stated.

Gender-wise analysis of payroll data represents that out of the total 7.72 lakh new members added during the month, around 2.04 lakh are new female members, joining EPFO for the first time.

Also, the net female member addition during the month stood at around 3.03 lakh which is around 15 per cent higher compared with the corresponding month of the previous year.

State-wise analysis of payroll data denoted that net member addition is highest in the five states of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Karnataka and Haryana.

These states constitute around 58.92 per cent of net member addition, adding a total of 9.01 lakh members during the month. Of all the states, Maharashtra is leading by adding 22.04 per cent of net members during the month.

Month-on-month comparison of industry-wise data displays significant growth in the members working in establishments engaged in the hotel industry, tea establishments, trading and commercial establishments, heavy-fine chemicals, companies offering life insurance, annuities etc, it stated.

Of the total net membership, around 40.27 per cent addition is from expert services (consisting of manpower suppliers, normal contractors, security services, miscellaneous activities etc.), it stated.

The payroll data is provisional since the data generation is a continuous exercise, as updating employee record is a continuous process. The previous data hence gets updated every month.