The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has released provisional payroll data for October 2024, revealing a net addition of 13.41 lakh members which signifies increased employment opportunities and heightened awareness of employee benefits, bolstered by EPFO’s effective outreach initiatives.

According to it, around 7.50 lakh new members were enrolled this October. This addition in new memberships can be attributed to growing employment opportunities, increased awareness of employee benefits, and EPFO’s successful outreach programmes. A noticeable aspect of the data is the dominance of the 18-25 age group, constituting a significant 58.49 per cent of the total new members added in October. The net payroll data for the age group 18-25 for October is 5.4 lakhs. This is in consonance with the earlier trend which indicates that most individuals joining the organized workforce are youth, primarily first-time job seekers.

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Also, the payroll data highlights that about 12.90 lakh members exited and subsequently rejoined EPFO. This figure depicts year-over-year growth of 16.23 per cent compared to October, 2023. 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.

A gender-wise analysis of payroll data unveils that out of the new members added during the month, around 2.09 lakhs are new female members. This figure exhibits year-over-year growth of 2.12 per cent compared to October, last year. Also, the net female member addition during the month stood at around 2.79 lakh. The increase in female member additions is indicative of a broader shift towards a more inclusive and diverse workforce.

When it comes to state-wise analysis of payroll data, the net member addition in the top five states/ UTs constitutes around 61.32 per cent of net member addition, adding a total around 8.22 lakh net members during the month. Of all the states, Maharashtra is leading by adding 22.18 per cent of net members during the month. The states/UTs of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Haryana, Telangana and Gujarat individually added more than 5 per cent of the total net members during the month.

As for the industry-wise data, its month-on-month comparison displays significant growth in the members working in establishments engaged in the industries viz. Road motor transport, Electronic media companies in the private sector, Banks other than nationalised banks etc. Of the total net membership, around 42.29 per cent addition is from expert services (consisting of manpower suppliers, normal contractors, security services, miscellaneous activities etc.).

However, the above payroll data is provisional since data generation is a continuous exercise, as updating employee records is a continuous process. The previous data gets updated every month. From the month of April 2018, EPFO has been releasing payroll data 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-joined as members, is taken to arrive at net monthly payroll.