EPFO's new entrant tally remains above 1 million mark for second straight month in July

Formal sector employment has seen a revival with first time entrants to the Employees’ Provident Fund remaining above the 1 million mark for the second consecutive month in July 2023.  

According to the provisional EPFO payroll data, 1.02 million new members joined the scheme in July. This was marginally lower than close to 1.04 million first time subscribers in June but the data is provisional tends to be revised upwards in most months.   

“The data indicates that around 1.02 million new members have enrolled during July which is highest since July,” said an official release by the ministry of labour and employment on Wednesday. First-time subscribers to the EPFO stood at 0.92 million in April, but that number has been rising every month and was at 0.93 million in May.   

The EPFO payroll data is considered a high frequency measure for formal sector job creation in the economy.  New entrants to the EPFO had been above the 1 million mark in the first half of last fiscal but had begun to decline from October 2022 and had remained less than 1 million ever since.  

According to the release, majority of new members joining EPFO in July were in the age-group of 18-25 years constituting roughly 58.45 per cent of total new members addition during the month. “This shows an increasing trend in youth enrolment, who are mostly first-time job seekers joining the organized sector workforce of the country,” it said.  

In all, 1.87 million were added to the EPFO in the month of July 2023. “The addition during the month is the highest since first publishing of EPFO payroll data from April, 2018 covering the period of September, 2017 onwards,” the release said, adding that a growing trend is continued since last three months with an increase of around 85,932 net members over the previous month of June, 2023.    

The data indicated that about 1.27 million members exited but rejoined EPFO, which is the highest in last 12 months, the ministry said. These members 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.  

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