EPFO adds 14.93 lakh net members in Month of December 2022

The Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has added 14.93 lakh net members in the month of December 2022, according to provisional payroll data issued. A year-on-year comparison of payroll data shows a 32,635 rise in net membership addition in December 2022 compared to the same month previous year in 2021.

Out of the 14.93 lakh new members registered this month, around 8.02 lakh are new to EPFO’s social security coverage. The age range of 18-21 years has the greatest enrolment (2.39 lakh members), followed by the age group of 22-25 years (2.08 lakh members). The 18-25 age group accounts for 55.64% of total new members during the month. This suggests that the bulk of EPFO members are first-time job searchers joining the country’s organised sector employment.

The data also shows that around 3.84 lakh members left the EPFO, while 10.74 lakh members left and rejoined. Some members changed occupations and re-joined EPFO-covered enterprises, opting to transfer their accumulations rather than seeking for final settlement, thereby extending their social security protection.

Payroll data that has been gender-analyzed shows that 2.05 lakh new female members have been enrolled as of December 2022. Between November 2022 and this month, there were 25.57% more female new members than there were overall, an increase from 25.14%. For the first time, these female members are covered by social security under the Workers’ Provident Funds & Other Provisions Act, 1952.

According to payroll data broken down by state, the top five states for net member addition are Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Karnataka, and Haryana. Together, these states contributed 60.08% of the net growth in membership for the month. Among all the states, Maharashtra is leading with a 24.82% increase in new members overall, followed by Tamil Nadu with a 10.08% increase in members throughout the month.

The classification of industry-wise payroll data indicates that ‘Expert Services’ (consisting of manpower suppliers, normal contractors, security services, miscellaneous activities etc.) constitute 38.22% of total member addition during the month. Comparing industry-wise data with that of previous month, higher enrolments have been noticed in industries namely, ‘financing establishment’, ‘beedi making’, ‘trading – commercial establishments’, ‘travel agencies’ etc.

The payroll data is provisional because it is generated continuously as part of the ongoing process of updating employee records. As a result, the historical data is updated each month. The EPFO began providing payroll information in April 2018 for the period beginning in September 2017. To calculate the net monthly payroll, the number of new members who join EPFO using an Aadhaar-validated Universal Account Number (UAN), the number of current members who leave EPFO’s coverage, and the number of former members who re-join as members are all counted.

EPFO is committed to extend social security benefits in the form of Provident, Pension and Insurance Funds to the organized workforce of the country covered under the purview of Employees’ Provident Funds & Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952.