EPFO adds 13.96 lakh net members in month of February 2023

The provisional payroll data of Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) released today highlights that EPFO has added 13.96 lakh net members in the month of February, 2023.

Out of the 13.96 lakh new members added throughout the month, around 7.38 lakh have joined EPFO for the first time. With 2.17 lakh new members, the age range of 18-21 years has the greatest enrolment, followed by the age group of 22-25 years with 1.91 lakh new members. The 18-25 age group accounts for 55.37% of total new members during the month. This suggests that the majority of participants joining the country’s organised sector workforce are first-time job searchers.

According to the report, nearly 10.15 lakh members re-joined EPFO, an increase of 8.59% over the previous year. These members changed occupations and re-joined EPFO-covered establishments, opting to transfer their accumulations rather than seek for final settlement, thereby extending their social security protection.

As per gender-based study of payroll data, the enrolment of net female members in February 2023 was 2.78 lakh, accounting for approximately 19.93% of the month’s net member growth. The new members include 1.89 lakh female members. This represents approximately 25.65% of all new joinees. In terms of female participation, the net female member addition and new female member addition have been at their best levels in the last four months. This reflects a rising trend of female labor-force involvement.

Payroll numbers by state show a month-on-month increase in net member additions in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, and other states. The top five states in terms of net member addition are Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Gujarat, and Delhi. These states account for 58.62% of net member additions during the month. Maharashtra leads all states in net member additions with 20.90%, followed by Tamil Nadu with 11.92% throughout the month.

According to the classification of payroll data by industry, ‘Expert Services’ (consisting of manpower suppliers, normal contractors, security services, miscellaneous activities, and so on) account for 41.17% of total member increase during the month. When comparing industry statistics to the previous month, larger enrollments have been observed in industries such as ‘leather goods’, ‘garment-making’, ‘establishments engaged in rendering courier services’, ‘fish processing and non-veg food preservation’, and so on.

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. 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-joining as members, is taken to arrive at net monthly payroll.

EPFO is a social security organization responsible for providing social security benefits in the form of Provident, Pension and Insurance Funds to the organised workforce of the country covered under the provisions of Employees’ Provident Funds & Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952.