EPFO Payroll Data: EPFO adds 16.82 lakh Net Members in Month of Sep 2022

The EPFO’s provisional payroll data, which was made public on November 20, 2022, shows that in the month of September 2022, the EPFO added 16.82 lakh net members. According to payroll statistics compared year over year, there was a 9.14% increase in net membership addition in September 2022 as compared to the same month in 2021. The net enrollment for the month was 21.85% greater than the monthly average for the previous fiscal year. According to research, some 2861 new businesses have begun adhering to the Employees’ Provident Funds & Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952, to provide their employees with social security coverage.

Around 9.34 lakh of the 16.82 lakh new members who joined during the month are now covered by EPFO for the first time. With 2.94 lakh new members, the age group of 18 to 21 years had the highest registration rate. The age group of 21–25 years came in second with 2.54 lakh members. About 58.75% of the population is between the ages of 18 and 25. This demonstrates that first-time job searchers are entering the workforce in huge numbers after completing their schooling, and that new employment in the organised sector are primarily being filled by the country’s youth.

During the month, 7.49 lakh net members changed positions inside EPFO-covered enterprises and rejoined the organisation, choosing to transfer their funds from their prior PF account to their current account rather than choose final settlement. Payroll data shows that over the last three months, the number of members quitting EPFO coverage has decreased steadily. When comparing one month to the next, it can be seen that around 9.65% fewer members left EPFO in September 2022 than in August 2022.

An examination of payroll data by gender reveals that 3.50 lakh net female members were enrolled as of September 2022. The net female membership in the organised workforce has increased with a growth rate of 6.98% in September 2022 compared to the net female membership during the previous year in September 2021, according to enrollment data compared year over year. The percentage of female workers who joined EPFO during the month was 26.36% of all new members.

Payroll data broken down by state shows that net member additions have been increasing month over month in states like Maharashtra, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, etc. By adding over 11.41 lakh net members during the month, or 67.85% of the total net payroll addition across all age categories, the states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Gujarat, and Delhi continued to hold the top spot.

According to the classification of payroll data by industry, 48.52% of the total number of new members during the month were added by two categories: “Expert services” (comprising of manpower agencies, private security agencies, and small contractors, etc.) and “Trading-Commercial Establishments”. Higher enrollments have been observed in the following sectors: “Banks other than Nationalised Banks,” “Textiles,” “General Insurance,” “Hotels,” and “Hospitals,” among others.

The payroll data is tentative because the process of updating personnel records requires ongoing data creation. Therefore, the historical information is refreshed each month. Payroll information for the period beginning in September 2017 has been made available by EPFO since the month of April 2018. Net monthly payroll is calculated using the number of members who join EPFO for the first time using a Universal Account Number (UAN) that has been authenticated by Aadhaar, the number of members who leave EPFO’s coverage and the number of members who leave but later rejoin.

The Employees’ Provident Funds & Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952 assigns EPFO the primary responsibility for providing social security coverage to the organised sector workforce in India. It provides a variety of services to its members, such as a provident fund, pension benefits upon retirement, family pensions, and insurance payments to the members’ families in the event of an unexpected death.