The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has made a net addition of 13.41 lakh members during October, reflecting the increased employment and higher awareness of employee benefits among workers, according to a statement issued by the Ministry of Labour and Employment on Wednesday.
The EPFO enrolled around 7.50 lakh new members in October out of which a significant 58.49 per cent were in the young 18-25 age group. The net number for this dominant age group is 5.43 lakhs.
This is in consonance with the earlier trend, which indicates that most joining the organized workforce are youths, mainly first-time job seekers, which points toward the growing employment opportunities in the economy.
The payroll data reflects that nearly 12.90 lakh members left and rejoined EPFO. This figure represents a year-on-year growth of 16.23 per cent compared with October 2023. These members left their employment and rejoined the establishments covered under the EPFO and chose to transfer their accumulations instead of filing for final settlement thus, ensuring long-term financial security and extending their social security cover.
Analysis of payroll data in terms of gender shows that among new additions during the month, nearly 2.09 lakhs are new females. This figure is reflecting year-on-year growth at 2.12 percent over October 2023.
Also, the net addition of female members during the month was around 2.79 lakh. According to the official statement, the increase in female member additions is indicative of a broader shift towards a more inclusive and diverse workforce.
A state-wise analysis of payroll data shows that the net member addition in top five states/UTs constitutes around 61.32 per cent of the net member addition and, in total, around 8.22 lakh of net members have been added during the month. The leading state is Maharashtra at the addition of 22.18 per cent net members during the month. Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Haryana, Telangana and Gujarat added more than 5 per cent of total net members in individual states/UTs during the month.
A month-on-month comparison of industry-wise data depicts a tremendous growth in the members working in establishments engaged in industries like road motor transport, electronic media companies, banks other than nationalised banks etc. The payroll data is provisional as the generation of data is a continuous process and updating the records of employees is also a continuous process, it added.
