New Delhi: The provisional payroll data of EPFO released on 20th December, 2022 highlights that EPFO has added 12.94 lakh net members in the month of October, 2022. Year-on-year comparison of payroll data reflects an increase of 21,026 in net membership in October, 2022 as compared to the corresponding month during last year in 2021.

As per data, around 2,282 new establishments have started complying for the first time under the Employees’ Provident Funds & Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952 ensuring social security cover to their employees, said the Ministry of Labour and Employment in a statement.

Of the total 12.94 lakh members added during the month, around 7.28 lakh new members have been covered under social security cover of EPFO for the first time. Among the new members, the highest number was registered for the age group of 18-21 years with 2.19 lakh members. This was followed by the age group of 22-25 years with 1.97 lakh members. Out of total new members joined, approximately 57.25 per cent are from the age-group of 18-25 years of age.

During the month, approximately 5.66 lakh net members exited but rejoined EPFO by changing their jobs within the establishments covered by EPFO and opted to transfer their funds from previous PF account to the current account instead of opting for final settlement.

Gender-wise analysis of payroll data indicates that enrolment of net female members has been 2.63 lakh in October, 2022. Out of this, 1.91 lakh females have joined the EPFO for the first time which is around 72.73 per cent of net female member addition during the month.

The state-wise payroll figures highlight that month-on-month growing trend in net member addition was observed in states of Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, and Jharkhand. In terms of net payroll addition during the month, the top five states constituted around 60.15 per cent of the total net payroll addition among all age groups. The states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, and Haryana have added approximately 7.78 lakh net members during the month.

The classification of industry-wise payroll data indicates that mainly two categories - ‘expert services’ consisting of manpower agencies, private security agencies and small contractors, etc, and ‘trading-commercial establishments’ constitute 48 per cent of total member addition during the month. Comparing industry-wise data with that of previous month, higher enrolments have been noticed in industries namely, ‘newspaper establishments’ and ‘sugar’, ‘rice milling.’ /BI/