EPFO adds 16.99 lakh net members in August

New Delhi: Retirement fund body EPFO has recorded net member addition of 16.99 lakh in August 2023, according to the payroll data released on Friday.

A Labour Ministry statement said that the year-on-year comparison of payroll data reflects a marginal increase in net members over the previous year of August 2022.

As many as 3,210 establishments extended social security cover of the EPFO to their employees by remitting their first ECR during the month.

The data indicates that around 9.26 lakh new members have enrolled during August 2023.

Among the newly joined members, the age-group of 18-25 years constitutes 58.36 per cent of the total new members added during the month. This indicates that most of the first-time job seekers are youth joining the organised sector workforce in large numbers.

The payroll data depicts that approximately 11.88 lakh members exited & rejoined EPFO, showing an increase of 10.13 per cent compared with the previous year in August 2022.

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.

The data also suggests that members exiting the fold of EPFO have declined continuously in the last two months.

Gender-wise analysis of payroll data represents that out of the total 9.26 lakh new members added during the month, around 2.44 lakh are female members, joining the EPFO for the first time. Also, the share of net female member addition during the month stood at around 3.43 lakh.

State-wise analysis of payroll data denotes that Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Haryana and Gujarat are the top fives states in terms of net member addition. These states collectively enrolled 9.96 lakh members during the month which constitute around 58.64 per cent of net members addition.

Pan India industry-wise data displays maximum membership in trading-commercial establishments, building & construction, engineer-engineering contractors, textiles etc.

Of the total net membership, around 39.87 per cent addition is from expert services (consisting of manpower suppliers, normal contractors, security services, miscellaneous activities etc.).

The above payroll data is provisional since the data generation is a continuous exercise, as updating employee record is a continuous process, it stated.

The previous data hence gets updated every month.

From 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.