Retirement fund body EPFO added 17.20 lakh members on a net basis in April this year, according to payroll data released on Tuesday. "Out of 17.20 lakh members added during the month, around 8.47 lakh new members have come under social security coverage of the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) for the first time," a labour ministry statement said.

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Among the newly joined members, 54.15 per cent of new members are in the age group of 18-25 years, indicating the majority of the members joining organised sector workforce are mostly first-time job seekers.

The EPFO's provisional payroll data indicated a significant increase in several key parameters.

It revealed that EPFO has added 17.20 lakh net members in the month of April 2023 as compared to the net addition of 13.40 lakh during the previous month of March 2023.

Year-on-year, an increasing trend has been observed in net payroll addition for the month of April 2023.

The data also shows increasing number of re-joinees as 12.50 lakh members exited but rejoined EPFO in comparison to 10.09 lakh in the previous month of March 2023, the ministry said.

These are the members who would 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.

As compared to the previous month, the number of exits has decreased by 11.67% with 3.77 lakh exits in the month of April 2023.

Year-on-year comparison also shows that exits have registered a decline for the month of April 2023.

Gender-wise analysis of payroll data reflects that enrolment of net female members has been 3.48 lakh in April 2023 as compared to 2.57 lakh during March 2023.

Of the total 8.47 lakh new members added during the month, around 2.25 lakh are new female members, joining EPFO for the first time.

Female members have constituted about 26.61 per cent of all new enrollments during the month indicating the highest female participation in the last six months among the new members.

Pan India analysis of payroll shows that month-on-month growing trend in net member addition is reflected in most of the states, it stated.

The states of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Gujarat, and Delhi constitute the top five states contributing around 59.20 per cent of net member addition during the month.

Month-on-month comparison of industry-wise data shows a significant growth in manufacturing & IT related sectors, it stated.

Among the top 10 industries, the highest growth has been witnessed in the establishments engaged in manufacturing, marketing-servicing, and usage of computers.

This was followed by electrical, mechanical or general engineering products and trading-commercial establishments.

Other major industries witnessing growing trend include garment making, textiles, building & construction and expert services, it stated.

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. From the month of April-2018, EPFO has been releasing payroll data covering the period from 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.

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